


and bound her in her bones

by Steerpike13713



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Duelling, F/M, Gen, Imprisonment, Mental Health Issues, Past Torture, Pirates, Starvation, Suicide Attempt, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: Belle isn't in the cell under the hospital in Storybrooke when the curse is broken and, when Snow and Emma find the only survivor of an ogre attack on the island after their return from Snow and Charming's former castle, heart torn out and thoroughly under Cora's control, it isn't Killian Jones they find.





	1. Prologue

The Dark Castle stood silent, dust gathering once again on surfaces that had been pristine the last time the Queen had visited. That had been more than a year ago, and yet it still gave her a warm, satisfied feeling to see the place so neglected. It had hurt him, then, the loss of his little maidservant. Had they been lovers? Certainly it was difficult to see what the insipid little creature could have seen in Rumpelstiltskin to desire at all, but women had made worse decisions, and power had a way of making one more attractive than one’s personal qualities perhaps merited. She had not expected him to find someone to replace the chit – his last experiment with keeping human servants had been an unqualified disaster, after all – but that he had not even returned to using his old spells to keep the castle clean and his possessions from falling into decay was, perhaps, the best sign she could have hoped for that she truly _had_ hurt him.

Rumpel himself was in his long dining-room, the one with the great oak spinning wheel at the far end, where he conducted most of those deals that were hashed out here at the castle itself. He was spinning, of course. He always was when visitors came to call – sometimes she had wondered if he had some way of knowing when visitors arrived without being informed, so that he might be found at his wheel, reminding anyone who cared to look of just how futile it was to offer him riches or any earthly thing, how little use had had for any sort of wealth. Well, she had seen the lie in that the moment she laid eyes on his earnest little serving-girl, some noble daughter or other, she had heard, though you’d never have thought it from the way she looked in the one glance at her the Queen had been able to spare on her last visit. “Flimsy locks,” the Queen said, almost laughing at the sight of him, small and slight and bowed over the spinning-wheel. “I have a deal to discuss,” she added as Rumpel looked around. “A certain…mermaid.”

“I’m not dealing today.” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice was little more than a whisper, harsh and rough and scratchy.

She glanced back at him, “Are you angry with me?” she asked, pouring the tea. “What is it this time?” She knew, and he knew she knew, but it would be no _fun_ to reveal that much just yet.

“Your little deception _failed_ ,” Rumpel ground out, and she could almost see him gritting his teeth at the words. “You’ll never be more powerful than me.” He looked back at her as she set the teapot down again, and there was a trace of the old impish grin on his face. “You can keep trying, dearie, but you’re never going to beat _me_.”

She clicked her tongue. “Is this about that girl I met on the road?” she very nearly cooed, every word laden with sugary malice, and oh, she wanted him to _feel_ this. She couldn’t help her laughter then, even knowing what she had to tell. “What _was_ her name? Margie? Verna?”

“Belle.”

There was something in his voice that made her look back at him then. It was almost like the way Daniel had said ‘Regina’, once. Before Snow White came, and had him killed so she could get what she wanted at the expense of the only thing Regina ever wanted for herself. “Right.” She fidgeted with the tea set as she considered how to say it. “Well,” she settled on at last. “You can rest assured I had nothing to do with that tragedy.”

Rumpelstiltskin went still, and then for the first time stepped away  from the spinning-wheel.

“What tragedy?”

“You don’t know?” she taunted, leaning ever closer and enjoying the blank, terrified look on her old teacher’s face. “ _Well_. After she got home...her fiancé had gone missing.” She couldn’t help her smile at that, and turned away so Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t see the satisfaction behind it, the savage joy she took in this, the best of revenges. “And after her stay here, her _association_ with you...” She turned back now, her face perfectly controlled again, wanting to see the pain and confusion and fear on Rumpelstiltskin’s face. “No-one would want her, of course. Her father shunned her. Cut her off, shut her out.” And that wasn’t all he’d done before he had given the girl to Regina, begging for any way at all to purge the memory of her lover from her mind.

“So she needs…a…a home?” Rumpel’s voice was not much more than a whisper, but she could see, in his eyes, he already knew the truth.

She laughed, soft and cold and full of triumph. “He was _cruel_ to her. He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges, and flaying.” The skin of the girl’s back had been almost entirely gone when she had been given into Regina’s hands, and still she had not wept. Perhaps she had cried all her tears by then, or maybe it was simply stubbornness, for the girl had shown herself to have no shortage of that. “After a while she threw herself off the tower,” she went on, “Into the sea. She died.”

The mermaid had told her the girl was dead, when Jones failed to return her and Regina had begun to search. Belle of Avonlea was no longer in this world or, Regina presumed, any other. And Jones’ plan, whatever it had been, had failed. It was almost a pity – Regina had had her uses for the girl, even if she would not speak a word of what she knew, and to Rumpel, she had apparently been worth far more than any objective consideration would merit.

“You’re _lying_ ,” Rumpelstiltskin very nearly growled.

She lifted her eyebrows “Am I?”

“We’re done.”

The great double doors swung open of their own accord as Rumpelstiltskin walked away, and Regina sighed. “Fine. I have other calls to make.” She paused at the end of the long table, and lifted a hand to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh! I almost forgot!” She produced from an inner pocket of her skirts the last, fatal, proof of what Jones had done: a girl’s hand, small and finely-made and calloused from hard labour, blisters on the delicate fingers. She had had it from a mermaid, who swore that this was the girl’s hand, and Regina’s own magic had confirmed as much. “Souvenir.”

It landed on the table with a soft, very final thud. It would suffice. Rumpelstiltskin had meddled in her plans too much of late, far too much, and grief and vengeance were the best distractions. If Snow White truly sought his help, it would be a much-weakened Rumpelstiltskin who answered the call, and that was enough of an advantage to make the whole petty venture with Jones seem almost worthwhile. In the meantime, she had other calls to make, other allies to meet, and even if she wasn’t fool enough to believe him beaten, she had Rumpelstiltskin at bay, for the time being. One would have to be a very great fool to make no use of that.


	2. Emma

The village was a scene of carnage, the buildings standing half in ruins, and the villagers apparently cut down where they had stood, broken like toys, dead. For a moment, Emma couldn’t grasp it. This was not a sight meant for her eyes. People didn’t just drop down dead, whole towns didn’t go up in smoke in a matter of days…but apparently in this world they did. It seemed absurd, pointless, ridiculous, when they had been alive just days ago, suspicious and wary and with an enemy in their midst, but _alive_.

“Spread out,” Snow – Emma wasn’t ready yet to think ‘Mom’, didn’t think she ever _would_ be ready to think of her that way – “Look for survivors. Ogres might be strong, but they aren’t especially bright. There might have been a few managed to hide somewhere.”

Mulan gave a brisk nod, and Emma shook herself.

“Yeah,” she said in a low, hoarse voice, staring around at the bodies. “I’ll go…do that.”

Snow frowned. “What is it?” she asked, and it was all Emma could do not to break down in a fit of hysteric laughter.

Mary Margaret would have known what was wrong. Mary Margaret would probably have been worse off than Emma, because Mary Margaret hadn’t come from the sort of world where whole villages being slaughtered was something that actually happened outside of the movies. Emma wasn’t a stranger to seeing people dead, but never this _many_ people all at once, and this close to. The movies couldn’t get across the smell of it, shit and rotting meat and the thick, organic, coppery scent of blood. None of the films ever showed what a human body looked like a few hours after death, either, and even if Emma had seen a couple of dead bodies in her time, your average bounty hunter generally didn’t run up against enough corpses to face something like that down without turning a hair. How many had Snow seen that she could? Emma didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, but it made her wish, more fervently than ever before, that she could still believe that Henry had been suffering from some sort of delusion and that the world she had grown up in was the only world there was. The bodies weren’t laid out randomly, Emma saw as she prowled amongst them, scanning for any sign of life. They’d been standing in line when they were murdered, and though they’d fallen in all directions when they died, there was still a sort of dreadful order to all this. Something was wrong here, terribly wrong, Emma could feel it, but what had the power to do this to a whole village, and would leave the bodies just…lying like this, to rot or be eaten by birds or maggots or whatever they had in this crazy world.

“This can’t be,” Mulan said, pacing over the charnel ground that had been the town square as Snow stepped out of the ruined house she had sent Aurora to investigate, presumably to keep her from seeing any more of the devastation that had been wrought here. “Our land – we were protected here, hidden. How did the ogres find us?”

Snow turned her head to reply, and then stopped dead, staring down at the corpses piled at her feet. “Ogres didn’t do this,” she breathed.

“What?”

“Cora did. Their hearts, they were ripped out,” Snow said, gesturing to the bodies all around them with a look of utter horror on her face. “This is _her_ magic, twisted and- _evil_. We have to stop her.”

Mulan shook her head. “Too late,” she said in a low voice that Emma could tell was steady only by a great effort of will. “She killed them. She killed them all.”

“No,” Snow said, and Emma couldn’t quite see the look on her face for Mulan, but she couldn’t imagine it was an expression Mary Margaret had worn, “We have to stop her before she hurts anyone else!”

“I found something!” came a cry from inside the half-collapsed house, and Emma looked up at the sound of Aurora’s voice.

“What is it?” Mulan called back, her hand going to the hilt of her sword, and, all right, Emma knew that look. She’d spent time in a women’s correctional facility, ok, she _knew_ what hopeless lesbian longing looked like.

“Someone survived,” Aurora said, appearing in the doorway, “Or she might, if we can get her out. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she’s trapped – part of the ceiling must have fallen in or something…”

That was odd. The rest of the townsfolk were lined up in the streets, execution-style. Why would this person, whoever she was, be left indoors? And that house had looked pretty sturdy the last time Emma had seen it. Cora might have destroyed the buildings for dramatic effect…but why bother, if the reason was only to punish the people here for sheltering her enemies? Something about all this just didn’t add up. But whether this person was an innocent in need of help or not, they were the only one who could give them answered.

The woman was a tiny thing, shorter even than Snow, her legs trapped under a beam that seemed to have fallen when the building was blasted. It wasn’t especially heavy – between them, Emma and Mulan could move it enough for Snow to drag the unconscious woman out from under it, while Aurora looked on, her hands twisting nervously in her skirt. The woman seemed to come round quite easily once she was out, blinking as they dragged her out into the light outside – her legs weren’t even broken, and that, to Emma’s mind, was more suspicious yet.

“…it’s all right,” Aurora was saying in a low, soothing voice, grasping the woman’s hand in hers. “You’re safe now. It’s all right, she’s gone. You’re safe. What’s your name? Can you remember?”

The woman nodded stiffy, then winced. “Belle,” she gasped out, her whole face screwing up in pain. “My name is Belle.”

 

_Avonlea had changed since she had been away. Belle had expected that much. She had seen it change far too much until they had been forced to abandon it for the castle at the edge of her father’s lands where Rumpelstiltskin had finally come to answer their summons. The damage of a decade of war could not be undone in less than a year, but the work had begun. Around her, Belle could see buildings that had been all but destroyed when she and her father had fled were being built up again, and gaps like missing teeth where other buildings had fallen in the ogres’ last, fatal assault on the empty city of Avonlea. Then, she had ridden through these streets on the back of a palfrey, at the head of the column of refugees wending north to their people’s stronghold on the coast. Now, she walked, craning her neck to take in every detail of how the world had changed._

_She could feel her people’s eyes on her. What they must think, now, of seeing Belle of Avonlea – Lady Belle, now, for her father had been granted an earldom, Rumpelstiltskin had told her idly once, in passing – dressed like a common milkmaid and back again from the Dark One’s castle? Except…no-one here seemed willing to look her in an eye._ _Their gaze passed over her as if she wasn’t there at all, only to linger on her back as she passed by, watchful and afraid. Belle wished more than anything for a mirror, that she might see some kind of change in herself to which they might be reacting, but mirrors were rare enough and valuable enough that even outside Rumpelstiltskin’s castle, she had not seen them often. Even now, in the courtyard of her own father’s castle, people’s eyes skated over her and then away, as if she was somehow contagious and the plague was abroad._

 _It was young Osric that let her into the long great hall. He had been a scrawny young guardsman the last time she was there – could it be not even a year ago now? It was hard to recognize the plump and velvet-clad herald who bowed her into her father’s hall as the angular, narrow-shouldered youth_ _whose armour had rattled if you jostled him._

_“Belle!”_

_Earl Maurice was a bear of a man, and lifted Belle clear off her feet when he embraced her. She felt as small as a child in his arms, even as he set her down gently on the stone-flagged floor, but when she looked up into his face it was drawn and grey, and more troubled even than it had been in the last stages of the war._

_“Papa? What is it?” she asked, drawing back a little._

_There was a soft cough – not even a real cough, but an elegant little imitation of such – from behind him, and Sir Maurice moved aside, to reveal the Reul Ghorm herself, grasping her wand in soft, pale hands. Belle went still. Desperation or no…trading oneself away to the Dark One to save one’s people, rather than relying on honest piety and prayer was not something that anyone used to worship would consider an acceptable step to take. Perhaps, before Rumpelstiltskin, Belle would not have thought to remember that being pious and virtuous and faithful had done her little enough good before. But then, maybe she would have done – theology had never been Belle’s subject._

_“My dear child,” the Reul Ghorm said, in her soft, kind voice, and stepped forward to take Belle’s hands in hers. “I have heard how you have suffered. To do what you did, to sacrifice all to save your province, is a debt that can never be entirely repaid.”_

Then why didn’t you do it earlier _, a nasty little voice that sounded suspiciously like Rumpel’s said, somewhere in the back of Belle’s mind. Belle forced a smile, and muttered some polite nothing about how anyone would have done the same, in her place, and tried to ignore the threads of guilt already winding through her about just how little of a sacrifice it had been._

_The Reul Ghorm smiled back, mild and gentle and ineffably kind. It was the same look that statues of her always captured, the gentleness of a goddess looking down on worshippers who might sin, and be flawed, and act foolishly, but whom she cared for all the same. It was uncharitable, maybe, to feel a slight flare of annoyance at that, but Belle couldn’t help it. But then, there had been other areas worse-affected than theirs, and the Reul Ghorm was protector of all the despairing, not just those of the Marchlands, was she not? And the world held other wars than theirs. Belle’s mother had been the one to tell her that, and though the excuse had rung hollow to a child’s ears, to an adult, and one who had seen the breadth of miseries brought to the Dark Castle in a year, it made an awful sort of sense._

_“Truly,” the Reul Ghorm said, softer, for Belle’s ears alone, “You have done more than even you know. Which is why it is so hard now, to ask yet more of you.”_

_Belle frowned. “More? What do you mean? Are the ogres-”_

_The fairy lifted a hand to silence her. “No. The ogres shall not return. The Dark One has transformed all that cross your borders into earthworms, and so the wiser heads among them counsel caution. But…there is one thing more that must needs be done before we may call this a victory.”_

_That ‘we’ rankled, as painfully cynical as it might be to think it, for this had not been the fairies’ victory. But still…do the brave thing, and bravery would follow. Do the heroic thing, that meant sometimes, and a hero would not let her irritation at a bad choice of words overrule her concern for her people._

_“I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course,” Belle said, nodding, “Why? What is it?”_

_The Reul Ghorm hesitated. “The Dark One’s corruption still lingers here,” she said, “The worms he made of the ogres turn the earth even as we speak, and dark magic never leads to aught but evil. There is yet a way to undo his malign influence over all of our world, but until now we had not a hope of finding it. There is…an item, in his castle, that is the key to his powers and his life. If we can destroy it, the Dark One will be destroyed and all his evil will be undone. Belle, it is our only hope. If you know anything about the dagger and where it is kept, I must beg you to save us all once again by-”_

_“No!” Belle almost couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to say it, but it was said, and even if she had wanted to there was no calling the words back._

_“No?” the Blue Fairy repeated, and it was amazing how cold the kind eyes could look. “Ah. I see.” Her gaze turned flinty._

It wasn’t difficult to get their survivor set up at a makeshift table, where Aurora kept her company, murmuring soothing nonsense and generally doing the whole nursing thing with a hell of a lot more grace than Emma would’ve expected of a pampered princess. At least Belle – and seriously, was there anyone in this damn world who _hadn’t_ had a Disney movie made about them at some point – wasn’t too demanding. She wasn’t very much shorter than Snow, now she was more-or-less upright, with a mass of brown curls and a shortened arm. The stump of her right wrist was tucked away demurely under her shawl even now, her good hand in its knitted glove resting on the table, and Emma might not have noticed it at all if it hadn’t fallen out while they were trying to move her, in the beginning when she still couldn’t walk. She was sitting at the makeshift table at their camp even now, hunched over a mug of tepid water and just staring into space. Emma knew that look, had seen it far too many times, on people who’d seen too much and done too much and couldn’t put all that away. It made her feel almost ashamed to be so suspicious, but Cora had tricked them once too often already, and something about this whole situation seemed _wrong_ somehow.

“An island full of corpses and you’re the only one to escape,” she said, watching the woman closely. “How exactly did that happen?”

The woman swallowed. “I- I didn’t see much,” she admitted. “She attacked at night. I was- Oh, gods…” she shuddered, and for a moment Emma thought she might be sick. “I- I just- I was so sure she’d kill me, she had her hand-” She cut herself off sharply. “But she just…looked at me, and said…something…and then I was still alive, and they were all dead. I’d just- I was right there, and she _butchered_ them.” No lies there, which was strange enough, and that rage, that disgust, that hatred in her voice…that wasn’t a lie either.

“She had her hand in your chest?” Emma asked, trying to sound calm. “Do you remember what she did next?”

Belle gave her a wide-eyed, desperate look, opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. She looked…well, a little frightened, but mostly angry. Emma couldn’t help but like her better for that. “Is- Has she- Is there a way of making it so you don’t die until later?” she asked, “To- To give a warning, or- Or as a message. She seemed the sort to like making examples of people.”

Emma frowned. No strict lies, nothing that set her off, but her superpower had misled her before. Something about all this just didn’t quite fit.

“And that’s as much as you know?” she asked. It was usually the right question. Belle looked up at her and nodded. “In words,” Emma clarified.

“Yes,” Belle said. _Lie._

She knew more than she was telling, for certain, but she hadn’t been lying about what Cora had done, and her disgust did not seem like it had been faked either. Emma wasn’t used to all this fairy-tale shit, but she could connect the dots easily enough.

“Cora has your heart,” Emma said. “And she doesn’t want you to tell us outright?”

Belle froze, and then nodded, quick and jerky, and looked for a moment very nearly pained. “I- Yes.” She blinked, looking almost startled. “Yes,” she repeated, “Oh! I can-”

“Looks like,” Emma said, giving her a sharp look. Even this read as mostly sincere, and that felt odd too for some reason. “Did she say anything? A message she wanted you to pass on, or…”

“Yes,” Belle said quickly, almost eagerly, “But – you have to know. It’s a trap. She wanted me to- to gain your trust, and find out about this place you come from. Storybrooke, I think was what she called it. She wants to go there, more than anything – she said her daughter is there. And…and there’s more.”

“Go on,” Mulan said, giving the woman a hard stare. They had known each other, Mulan had confirmed as much – the woman had come to the camp just a month ago, claiming her hand had been cut off in punishment for theft years before. Under other circumstances, that might have been enough to deny her entry when any theft might mean the difference between survival and starvation. But she had said the hand had been cut off under the Evil Queen’s rule, and apparently Regina had not made herself popular. Well, of course she hadn’t, Evil Queen and all, but Emma had somehow always imagined it as a much more…focused…sort of thing, not just going around randomly kicking every dog that crossed her path.

“There is…an enchanted compass,” Belle said, positively humming now with pent-up energy. “Cora needs it. She- She said she had created a portal from the ashes of a…a tree? Or a wardrobe? Or a tree that was a wardrobe…she wasn’t terribly clear on that part.” _Lie_. Emma leaned forward, listening intently as Belle went on. “She- She said she needed the compass to find your land, but that it was…ah…rather difficult, shall we say, to get to. She wants to use you to retrieve the compass, and then I was supposed to-” Belle broke off, clapping her good hand over her mouth. “I swear, I wouldn’t do this if I had the choice – all I want is to find my family and be free of Cora’s control.”

“We know,” Snow said soothingly, casting a glance over at Emma, who nodded. That much had been the truth, she could tell that much.

“Your family?” she asked, “What happened to them?”

Belle shook her head. “I- I can’t go back to them,” she admitted in a halting voice, “Not until Cora’s gone. It wouldn’t be safe for them.”

“It’s all right,” Aurora said, catching hold of Belle’s hand, “Of course – we understand. And we will help you find your family again, if- if we can.” She, too, shot a curious look at Emma, who stared at her. Not another diversion, please.

“This compass,” Snow said, frowning, “And the portal – we could use those as easily as Cora could, if we get there first.”

Mulan looked utterly horrified, “You heard her,” she said, nodding at Belle, “It’s a trap, you know Cora will-”

“It’s still a chance, isn’t it?” Snow pressed, “And we have to get home – our family needs us.”

“You’ll be no good to your family dead!”

“If I may,” Belle interrupted, sounding slightly impatient now. Something in her voice had slipped too, shifted, though Emma couldn’t quite put her finger on what. “I know where the compass is,” she said, looking back at Emma, “And I can help you find it. All I ask in return is to be allowed to accompany you- Cora- She is not the sort of woman to readily forgive failure.” _True._

Emma frowned. “I don’t like this,” she muttered. There was just no winning here – either they left Belle behind, and Cora killed her for her failure, or they brought Belle along and Cora would have information on their plans when Belle finally reported back to her. She sighed. Put it like that, and there really was only one thing to do, but she wished to god there wasn’t. “Ok, you can come.”

_“Belle?” her father said, sounding a little taken aback at this disobedience. “Belle, you’re free now. The Dark One can’t do anything to hurt you now, even if you do tell his secrets – not with all the power of the Reul Ghorm lined up in your defence!”_

_The Blue Fairy’s smile grew somewhat fixed at that, and Belle turned to her, wishing she were better with words so she could at least try and make them see._

_“He wouldn’t hurt me – he never_ did _hurt me, not even at the end. And…and he’s not as bad as he seems. I know what you must think of him, but-”_

_“The Dark One is a master of deception,” the Blue Fairy said, giving Belle a stern look. “I had hoped you would not be taken in. You don’t understand what it is he would do to you – what he has already done, I think.”_

_“What- No,_ you _don’t understand! I_ chose _to go with him! And he upheld his end of the bargain, and treated me more fairly than he could have done, and- and-” And I think I might love him, was what she meant, but how could she say it now? How could she stand here, before her father and the Reul Ghorm herself and admit that she had fallen in love with the Dark One, and that her love had been cast aside?_

 _“I understand,” the Blue Fairy said, so gently Belle almost believed it. “Of course I do. The Dark One has ever sought to trap and trick the unwary, child. But that is all it is, Belle. He does not feel as you do, he_ cannot _understand love, or kindness, or any such thing.”_

_Belle stared at her, not sure whether she wanted to scream or cry. “How would you know? Has anyone ever tried?”_

_“We have fought the Dark One for centuries,” the Blue Fairy answered, still in that maddeningly patient voice, “We know his schemes and tricks. You aren’t the first woman he has fooled into believing he cared for her, and though the last became a monster, you might yet avoid that fate.”_

_“What-” Her voice was shaking, despite her attempts to control it. “What do you mean?”_

_“The dagger, Belle,” her father cut in, “Tell them where it is, and we might yet have the key to destroying the Dark One for good, and avenging all the other lives he’s destroyed since he emerged from whatever darkness it was that spawned him.”_

_“What- No! No! Don’t you understand?_ I love him _.” The words brought a foolish, dizzy smile to her face, because, rejected or not, it was true. She had fallen in love at last, and whatever he might have said when he sent her away, she knew her love was returned. “I_ love _him and if you think I’m going to- going to betray him to his worst enemies and let them destroy him just because- because he made a fair deal with us instead of giving help outright, knowing what it would cost if he did, you’re more a fool than I ever thought you were!”_

_She couldn’t look at her father, but she saw the Reul Ghorm’s face, and what she saw there frightened her._

_“And this-” her father’s voice was as shaky as her own had been – they always had had that in common, the two of them – “This is where your heart truly lies, then?”_

_Belle nodded, tears starting to prick at her eyes as she looked back at him, his own eyes wet and red-rimmed, and for a moment she felt, inexplicably, that he would understand, that he would know – he had been the one who told her, after all, that love was not something anyone could control or predict, that he had not expected to love the pallid girl to whom he was to be wed, only to find that love had crept up on him unawares, like a thief in the night. He nodded, just once, and then looked to the Reul Ghorm, who nodded too._

_“Guards!”_

_Rough, mailed hands caught Belle by the shoulders, and she struggled more out of instinct than anything else._

_“You-!” she spat, and another hard hand closed over her nose and mouth so that she could hardly breathe as her father laid his sad eyes on her._

_“When the Reul Ghorm appeared to me to warn me of your corruption, I didn’t listen,” he said sorrowfully, “I’m sorry, Belle. I should never have let you go. The ogres would have been well worth it if your soul could have remained clean. I can only hope that you forgive me when…” he broke off and the Blue Fairy laid a hand on his shoulder._

_“It is for the best,” she said in her low, kind face, and only the fact that she could hardly breathe kept Belle from barking out a harsh, scornful laugh. “You did the right thing,” the Blue Fairy said, and her cold eyes found Belle’s._

Belle was busy typing out all Cora’s plans on Emma’s phone – Emma still wasn’t sure that didn’t count as writing, but didn’t want to point it out in case it made Belle stop – when Emma finally managed to get Snow off on her own after they made camp that night.

“So, what’s the deal with her?” she asked, nodding over at Belle. “I mean…isn’t Belle supposed to be in some sort of castle with…I don’t know, dancing teaspoons or something?” She did know, as it happened – she might not have been much for fairy-tales growing up, but one of her better foster-mothers had taken them all to see the _Beauty and the Beast_ movie when it first came out. Emma had been nine, and already too old to admit to liking it, but it had been a pretty cute movie from what she remembered. It hadn’t said anything about Belle getting her hand cut off, but twenty-eight years was a long time.

Snow shook her head, “I’ve never seen her before in my life,” she admitted, “I don’t know everyone, Emma. I never met Nicholas and Ava before Storybrooke, or Doctor Whale, or that guy Jefferson who kidnapped me that one time…”

“Right.” Emma looked back over at Belle, who had set down the phone to smile at Mulan in that unsettlingly harmless-looking way she had. Mulan returned the look with one of deepest suspicion.

“I wish Mulan wouldn’t keep doing that,” Aurora said from over by the fire, frowning at the two of them, “Whatever her story is, Belle’s been through enough already. She’s harmless,”

Emma frowned. On the surface of it, that seemed to be about right. Belle was unarmed, was small and slight and delicate-looking and she was missing what seemed to be her dominant hand, to boot. The word ‘deceptive’, though, kept attaching itself to all of those descriptors in Emma’s head. She’d lied so well it had only been gut instinct that had led Emma to press for more, lied in such a way that it wasn’t even really lying. She held herself the wrong way, light and fluid and quick-moving, and her clothes were a bit too clean and neat to gel with the rest of the world Emma had seen so far.

“She’s working with Cora,” Snow said flatly, “And Cora would’ve chosen her for a reason.”

Aurora faltered, “Well…yes, but it’s not like it’s her choice. And- And even if she does try to steal the compass, you’re all…well, not knights, but fighters, and she’s such a tiny thing…”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Mulan said tightly, throwing another dirty look in Belle’s direction. “I don’t like you so close to her, Aurora. If she does turn on us, you would be the easiest for her to bring down, even if you were more suspicious.”

“I’m quite sure of your ability to protect me,” Aurora said, reaching up to pat Mulan’s hand, but Mulan did not seem mollified.

“At least promise me you won’t be alone with her,” she said in a low, fervent voice.

Aurora smiled gently back. “I promise,” she said, squeezing Mulan’s hand in hers. “But I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

“Believe what you like,” Emma glanced back over at Belle, and couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity despite her suspicions. “But as long as Cora has her heart, she’s a danger to us, no matter how helpful she’s been so far.”

Aurora went pale, but seemed to concede the point, and Emma went over to check on Belle’s progress with the typing. When she got there, Belle handed the phone over with some reluctance.

“There,” she said, and then, “That’s a very curious device. How does it work?”

Emma stared at her. “I- I’m not exactly a tech expert here,” she replied, “So…Belle? There, uh…god, this sounds insane…there wouldn’t happen to be any… _beasts_ in that colourful history you mentioned?”

Belle went very still for a moment. “What of it?” she said, in a distinctly frosty sort of tone. Ah. It was one of _those_ Beauty and the Beast stories. That sucked. Emma had been hoping for something a bit more like the movie.

“Sorry, I just…look,” Emma sighed. “My son, his name’s Henry, he had this book of stories about this world…” Probably best not to mention the ‘your lives are common stories over in my world’, because that would just be confusing.

“Oh.” Belle seemed to thaw slightly at that. “Then…yes. There was, once. But that was a long time ago. I don’t know what happened to him. I went to his castle, once, after…all of this,” she glanced around at the devastated countryside. “He was long gone, the castle…looted, devastated…no-one would’ve dared do that if he were still there.”

“Gone? Gone how? Dead?”

Belle shook her head. “No. Not that I heard. Just…gone. The same way the Queen was gone, and Papa was gone, and everyone else I knew was gone. Disappeared. I don’t know how long ago it was – it’s a little difficult to keep track, what with no-one getting any older.”

“I bet it is,” Emma muttered. “So…hang on, he disappeared around the same time everyone else did, without a trace?”

“As I’ve said,” Belle said shortly.

Emma was quite sure now that she was being evasive on purpose. “You know,” she said, “I don’t know if Cora told you, but Storybrooke…it was created when the Queen cast a curse, a curse that was supposed to take everyone she hated into another world, where they would be trapped in time and miserable for all eternity. Your beast might be there.”

Belle glanced up at her, her mouth slightly open. “You- You really think so?” she said, “I thought-” she swallowed. “Is he? He wouldn’t be easily missed, he’s far too fond of his theatrics for that…”

“I don’t know,” Emma said, “I mean, I’m pretty sure I haven’t met him yet, but he might be there. I mean, the curse did some pretty weird things to people’s personalities.” Just look at David Nolan. Snow had told her a little about what Prince Charming was apparently like, and she’d read a fair bit of it in Henry’s book, and he’d always struck her as the sort of person who’d probably have hated David Nolan and how he had hurt both the women he claimed to have loved. That, of course, had been the point.

There was something painful about the look on Belle’s face – regret and hope and pain and joy and sadness all mixed up together – and the knowledge that Emma had put it there. But then, as quick as flicking a switch behind her eyes, it was gone.

“No,” she said simply. “I don’t think so. Like I said…it was a long time ago.” She gave another low, harsh laugh. “I don’t even remember his name, now.”

What must that be like, Emma wondered. She hadn’t loved him in years, had done her best not to think of him until Henry came into her life, but she couldn’t imagine not knowing Neal Cassidy’s name, even though there’d been times she’d wished for just that. There was an odd look on Belle’s face as she said it, harder and sadder than quite fit with the rest of the puzzle pieces Emma had seen so far.

“Right…it really must’ve been a long time, then,” she said lamely, groping for anything else to stay.

Belle shook her head. “Not like that. My father didn’t approve, so he made me forget, or tried to, but all I lost was his name.”

Emma’s throat tightened. “Your father did that to you?”

“Yeah.” Belle gave another smile, small and sad. “It was a long time ago. He’s probably dead by now.” _Lie._

“Well, you don’t know that – time’s been frozen in more places than just here,” Emma argued, not quite sure why she was doing it. “How bad a break-up _was_ it?”

“Bad enough,” Belle said firmly. “Thank you, though. It was kindly done.”

Emma shifted uneasily. She never liked being told she had done something kind – she always wanted to correct the misapprehension – but she couldn’t exactly say that, even if she wanted, they probably wouldn’t be able to take Belle back with them without confronting Cora, because what happened to someone whose heart had been torn out if they were taken to another world and the heart was not?

“Yeah, well…look, about the Cora thing…”

Belle sighed, “All her plans that I am privy to are there,” she said, nodding at the phone. _Lie_. Emma glared at her, and Belle relented. “All her plans that I am able to admit to being privy to are on there. But it isn’t going to be terribly much use – you know she can use my heart to eavesdrop if she wants to- Ah!” she pressed her hand to her chest. Emma started forwards, but Belle let the hand drop. “No,” she said weakly. “It’s…just a reminder, I think. There will be other plans, and after this,” she nodded at the phone. “She’ll take care not to let me know them.”

“You’re being surprisingly helpful,” Emma said sceptically.

Belle shrugged, “I never gave my word I wouldn’t be, and in any case, an oath under duress is no oath at all.” Emma blinked at that, but Belle didn’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary about it. “We’ll reach the beanstalk by mid-morning,” she said, “Do you know who you’re going to take with you? I’m…not precisely fitted for climbing.”

“The- the compass is up a beanstalk? As in… _the_ beanstalk? Kid named Jack, cow, golden goose…or harp…or just a plain old bag of gold… _that_ beanstalk?” Apparently there _wasn’t_ anything here that hadn’t had at least one Disney movie made about it, or at least a short. Or…had all of this happened somehow after stories had been told about it in another world? Ugh, that gave Emma a headache to think about.

“I don’t know about the rest of it,” Belle admitted, “But it _is_ a beanstalk, and it _was_ Jack who climbed it. It’s all on there,” she pointed at the phone. “Logically, I would suggest Mulan,” she added, “No disrespect to your mother, but she’s long out of practice, and you will need your best fighter against what awaits you up there.”

Emma frowned, “Yeah, well, you’ll excuse me for not rushing to take your advice, but last I looked you were still working for Cora, and if you want me to take Mulan, I’m going to be questioning why you’re so keen.”

Belle sighed. “I _have_ told you. My best hope of survival is to get the compass to Cora, and I can’t do that unless you have the compass. If I give you the counter-spell to the giant’s protections, and you don’t come back safe, she will have lost the spell and I will be of no further use to her.”

There was something unsettling about hearing it said so baldly, and Emma couldn’t help the roiling of guilt in the pit of her stomach at the realisation that Belle had known for quite some time now that she was going to die, now or later, and that everything she had seen of that other, harder Belle, was nothing but plain, pure terror of when that death would be.

“We could help,” she offered, “I mean, we’ll either have to steal the compass back or we’ll have to steal the ashes from the wardrobe – we could get your heart for you at the same time, if you liked.”

“Kindly offered,” Belle said, “But bad form to lie, all the same. We both know it wouldn’t be that simple, and you have your son to get home to. I’d think less of you if you passed up the chance of that to help someone who’s been nothing but a rather cordial enemy to you this whole time. And that is, let us be clear, what we are.”

Emma snorted, “You and Mr Gold’d get on like a house on fire,” she muttered. It was, near enough, the same thing Gold had admitted to her on more than one occasion. “All right. I’ll think about it. But you so much as breathe wrong around Aurora, and don’t think Snow won’t shoot you just because she isn’t as invested in all this as Mulan.”

Belle gave an ironic little bow, “I shouldn’t dream of it,” she said, and it wasn’t until later that night, lying sleepless under a sky laden with more stars than Emma had ever seen before, that Emma remembered why she had found Belle so disconcerting.

 


	3. Mulan

_There were things they would not do. They could not cut her, not directly, that was not the Reul Ghorm’s way – no cleric could wield a blade against any living thing. Not a sword, not a dagger, not so much as a household knife of the sort Belle herself had carried before the war years, to cut paper or eat with at table, could those reverend brothers bring to bear to ensure her compliance. They could not starve her, either. That, the Reul Ghorm said, would be a pointless cruelty for one who was so devoutly hoped to live and to repent. A healthy woman might survive all else that was done to her, and Belle’s survival was what was meant. And they could not use magic. Magic was the domain of the Reul Ghorm herself and her handmaids, and no mortal mind could long contain it. So the Reul Ghorm had said. Belle was beginning to wonder about that. She’d wondered about it ever since she had found the child’s clothes in the Dark Castle, but dismissed her suspicions as uncharitable. But…well, if you couldn’t be uncharitable about the person who had locked you in a cell at the top of a freezing tower, who_ could _you be uncharitable towards?_

 _‘Locked’ was maybe something of a misnomer. There were no locks in the cell. There was no_ need _for locks. The tower stood just on the sea-shore, at the tip of a long spar of rock sticking out to sea, with impossibly smooth, sheer walls worn smoother still by the buffeting of the harsh east wind. There was no shelter there but the bare hub of the old lighthouse, and that itself so bare and bleak that even the cell in which she had spent her first night in the Dark Castle seemed a paradise by comparison. There was no warm straw here to soften the stonework, and the cold winds off the sea rattled through the empty windows. She was not allowed down from the top of the tower, not under her own power, and the thick chain that bound her to the hub at its heart was only just long enough to allow her to walk out to the edge of the tower and look out over the sea, so that even if she could have somehow overpowered the burly lay brothers who were sent each day to bring her meals, she could never have got more than halfway down the ladder to the next level before the chain brought her up short._

 _In the beginning, that had been all – just her, and the chain, and the empty sky. She’d almost laughed._ I will not die of cold _, she had scoffed, when dozens did so every winter. Her death, they had answered, was not the point. They would not speak to her. That alone had been hard enough to bear in the beginning, when Belle had never been a day in her life without someone at hand to talk to. No noblewoman could ever be alone even in her own castle, and her flock of ladies-in-waiting had been one of the hardest losses she had felt, when the thrill of her own importance wore off and the realisation of what she had lost sank in. She had seen them, some of them, as she was dragged out of her father’s council chamber. None of them had met her eyes, none of them had even looked at her, and one, little Griselda who Belle had laboured so hard to help with her reading just a handful of years before, had spat on the floor as Belle was dragged by._

_Her respite had not lasted long. The Reul Ghorm herself had come at the end of that month, descending to the narrow walkway outside the cell in a shower of powder-blue sparks. She had demanded, soft and sweet and impeccably polite as ever, but still unmistakably a demand, that she give up Rumpelstiltskin’s dagger. She had spoken of Belle’s duty to her father, she had appealed to Belle’s love for her people, she had regretfully informed Belle that, should she defy him again, she defied her father and the clerics to their worst. Belle had thrown the chamber pot at her. She had known, even then, that she would regret it, but the sight of the Reul Ghorm, high and mighty as she was, dripping with effluent and open-mouthed in speechless horror – an unfortunate combination, by all accounts – would keep her warm for many, many nights to come._

_The very next day, the water treatments began._

True to Belle’s word, they reached the beanstalk mere hours after breaking camp the next morning. Mulan only wished that meant she was trustworthy, but with Cora in possession of her heart, no-one would be, and Belle had been...really, very accommodating about Emma and Snow’s inability to offer that help. Too accommodating for Mulan’s liking, because no-one – no-one like Belle, who wasn’t a fighter, who was just a village woman who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – could be that calm in the face of certain death. Mulan had known soldiers who broke under that knowledge, and she knew that a soldier was one thing Belle had never been. It wasn’t that they’d been especially close, but Belle knew a bit about medicine and Mulan had been injured enough times before time re-started and she and Phillip set off to find Aurora that there were benefits to being friendly with someone who knew their way around these things. And she might not talk much, and when she did it was never about where she’d come from, and Mulan had never heard her mention any family off the island, but they’d come to know each other about as well as Mulan had got to know anyone since the world fell down around her.

That was most of the problem. Because when Cora ripped a heart out, there was no way of telling how much of the original person was still in control of their actions. Mulan had thought Lancelot was himself…but had he been, really? And if Belle was acting more like herself than she was like Cora…there were slips. Not many, but Mulan could see them. And they scared her witless, because she didn’t think she’d be able to bear losing first Belle and then Aurora if she was wrong.

“Wait,” Emma said, as Belle finished her explanation of just what it was that made the beanstalks so rare, and so precious. “If these beans create portals, why not just pick one and go home? Why the compass?”

“Because there aren’t any more,” Belle replied, fishing for something in the pouch at her waist. "They were destroyed during the ogre wars. Well, the giant wars, technically, but there was a fair bit of overlap, particularly in my province. And we can’t grow more, because the last of the giants is understandably not all that keen on humans after all that, and warded the beanstalk against us.”

“That’s not the whole truth,” Aurora argued, “The giants were…were evil, we all heard that – they destroyed the beans rather than let anyone else use them for good.”

Belle gave a distinctly unladylike snort. “I heard that version, though I never saw a giant causing trouble before the wars started, and you’d think if they were going about ransacking the worlds they’d start with the one underneath them.”

“Maybe they couldn’t,” Snow said, shrugging.

Belle rolled her eyes, and produced something from out of her purse. “Fortunately, Cora gave me these – counter-spells. She didn’t want to take the risk herself, and I can’t climb.” She brandished a pair of thick leather wristlets, and grinned brightly. “I don’t think she was reckoning on there being so many of you,” she admitted, “Or maybe it was just that she couldn’t get more than two of them. Either way, for two of you, these are your ticket up the beanstalk. I think the compass is in with the giant’s treasure, but it may take you a while to find it.”

“You?” Snow said sharply, giving Belle a stern look.

Belle shrugged, “It takes two hands to climb,” she reminded Snow, “I would be all too willing to go, but it’s a matter of physical capabilities.”

Snow nodded sternly. “Right, so, just Emma and me go up?”

“Absolutely not,” Mulan said sharply. “All due respect, but I’m the best-equipped to go. How many wars have you been through?”

“My share!” Snow snapped back, her eyes flashing.

“It should be me,” Aurora interrupted, even as Emma went to look over the beanstalk itself.

Mulan stared at her, wishing she could believe she’d imagined it. “You- You haven’t fought in a battle, how could you-”

“This is about us getting home to _our_ loved ones,” Snow retorted, “Why would you-?”

“Because I _have_ no loved ones!” Aurora’s voice cracked. “If I fail, you can still go on.”

Mulan would have given anything to be able to reach for Aurora then. To be able to catch her hand and promise her that there were still people in the world who cared for her. But she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right, not this soon after what happened to Phillip. The images kept intruding, though – Aurora’s body broken at the foot of the beanstalk if she wasn’t strong enough to climb. Aurora, squashed flat by a giant foot, or broken against the wall of the sky castle where she had been thrown. She couldn’t un-see it.

“It’s me,” Emma said shortly, “I’m going, and I’m not going to fail.”

“You’re new here-” Snow started.

Emma glared at her. “It’s about getting back to Henry. I don’t care what I have to face.” There was silence for a moment, and Snow looked down and away. “You’re not going to argue with me?” Emma asked.

“Would it do any good?”

“No,” Emma replied.

This was, it seemed, as good a point as any. “Then I’m going with you,” Mulan said, and then, over Snow’s squawk of protest. “I’m in better practice than you, and I’ve got something I think might help. You stay here, keep an eye on her,” she turned another glare on Belle, or whatever was looking out through her eyes. “And make sure Aurora’s ok. I’ll do the same for Emma.”

“It’s our best hope of one of us getting home,” Emma agreed. Mulan could _see_ Snow just biting back the urge to knock Emma out and go herself, but then Belle called over.

“Have you decided yet?” she asked.

Emma looked away from her mother, “Yeah,” she said, “Me and Mulan are going.”

Belle gave a brisk nod, and trotted over, hand outstretched. “Take one each, then. And…good luck,” she gave a thin smile, “I suppose this is the last time we’re going to be working on the same side until all this is over.”

Mulan gave her a long, unamused look, but Emma snorted.

“You know, saying things like that doesn’t exactly help.”

Belle gave another little, self-deprecating shrug, and stepped back as Mulan and Emma wrapped the bracelets around their wrists.

“Be careful,” Snow said, going to hug Emma, but Mulan looked at Aurora, who looked back, pale and scared and worried and so very, very out of her depth in the madhouse their world had become. If Mulan died up there…well, she’d be leaving Aurora in the company of a proven warrior, and with Snow there, she’d probably be able to reach some sort of safety, even in another world. Emma too looked somewhat nervous, and her eyes lingered on Belle for a moment. If Belle wanted to betray them, she would have every opportunity now.

Belle, apparently feeling their gaze on her, raised her hands. Well, her hand and stump. “Completely unarmed,” she said, with a wry little smirk Mulan had never seen her wear before. “And if _Snow White_ can’t stop me, I’ll have to wonder how the Evil Queen managed to avoid killing her for the best part of ten years.”

Snow bristled at that, but it wasn’t as if Belle didn’t have a point, and they hadn’t the time to waste anyway.

The beanstalk was not all of a piece – if it had been, there was no way anyone would ever have been able to climb it – but made up of twisting vines, wrapping and winding around each other, and other, smaller vines laid overtop the thicker, older ones further in. Mulan was a strong climber, and Emma wasn’t so very bad, for someone so new to their world and how it worked. They were neither of them talkative, and under other circumstances Mulan wouldn’t have expected a word to pass between them before they reached the top, but these were no ordinary circumstances.

“How well do you know Belle?” Emma asked, when they finally paused for breath halfway up.

Mulan shrugged, “We were friendly enough when she lived in the village. She was our healer, or one of them. She knew more about dealing with battle wounds than most of the others, but that was nothing uncommon for those who had to live under the Evil Queen’s rule.”

“Can she be trusted?”

Mulan considered this. “If it were just Belle to think of, I would trust her,” she said, “She’s an honourable enough sort. She wouldn’t betray us of her own choice, at least. She’d say it was bad form. But if Cora has control of her, she may not have the choice, and I doubt somehow that Cora is foolish enough to let her tools share all her plans with the people she’s plotting against.”

“You think there’s more to this than she’s telling us?” Emma said, and at Mulan’s nod she gave a tight smile. “Good. I thought she was lying a few times there. Anyway,” she rolled her eyes, “What are the odds that the one person Cora puts under her control is the one who doesn’t immediately go into a panic for her life, but who thinks through the limits of what Cora can do to her and tells us _just_ enough before Cora issues a warning through the heart? I only put it all together last night, but it’s too much to be just a coincidence.”

Mulan wished she couldn’t see the sense in that. Cora was not the sort of person to issue a warning to an underling who betrayed her. If Belle had done anything Cora had not intended, her corpse would have been cooling on the ground before any of them could have done a thing to help her.

There was a pause, and then Emma said. “Why do they call her the Evil Queen?”

“Because that is what she was,” Mulan said harshly. “Your mother might have had her hardships, but Queen Regina did worse in her time than torment one princess.”

And then, because Emma was curious, she told all. There had been enough stories of burnt-out villages and slaughtered peasants, enough common children taken from their parents and sent deep into the woods, never to return, enough courtiers executed for protesting loyalty to their true ruler and decrying the Queen’s usurpation. Some of the tales Mulan had had from other villagers, or from those who had just been passing through. It had been a young man named Guy, late of her majesty’s guards, who told her about the huntsman. No-one was ever entirely alone in a castle, least of all a reigning queen, and there were only so many interpretations it was possible to attach to an order such as ‘bathe him and bring him to my bed’. A ragged woman, a pedlar in happier days, had told her of the two children she had met once, on the borders of the Infinite Forest, who had told of the house of sweets and the Queen who had sent them there. Quite often, the tales had been all they had to offer, and Mulan had been willing enough to listen. By the end of the accounting, they were two-thirds up the beanstalk, and Emma was as white as milk.

“ _I left my son with that woman_ ,” she very nearly gasped, somewhere between a gasp and a hiss. “And no-one ever told me- And Graham- She did that to him. For _thirty years_ , she-”

“Graham?” Mulan asked, intrigued despite herself.

Emma shook her head, “The huntsman, he- we were-” she broke off, looking sickened.

Oh. It was like that, was it? No wonder Emma was so much in two minds about Belle. And by the sound of it, the queen’s huntsman was no longer among the living. Still, it wasn’t her place to pry.

“We should reach the top soon,” she said, looking up, “I have something that might help. Powder, made from poppies imported from another world. My land fought a terrible war to keep too much of it from entering this world, but it should put the giant to sleep.”

_The water was like ice, and like ice it seemed almost to burn against her skin. Unless that was just the burning in her lungs, the tearing in her chest, as she spluttered and struggled against hands like iron that kept her, pinned her, so that all her struggles did was make her weaker, as her head was forced down, so that her nose almost brushed the bottom of the basin. Her head was wrenched up roughly by the hair._

_“Confess.” The cleric, who wore the star of an Eldest Brother, never raised his voice. That was the worst of it. Other clerics might rage and storm about the judgement of the gods, but the Eldest Brother never, never spoke above the low whisper that had Belle straining her ears for his voice even as she knew there was no good there to hear. But even if she had wanted to confess, she couldn’t, she was too busy gasping in deep, desperate lungfuls of air, and only the strong hands of two more brothers of the Order kept her upright._

_“I_ can’t _,” she ground out, “I haven’t-”_

_The larger of the two lay brothers who held her slammed her head back down against the rim of the basin, and for a moment Belle could see nothing but whiteness as the pain exploded behind her eyes, the blood dripping down to clump in her eyelashes as stars seemed to whirl around her. Her knees gave out under her, and she heard the shorter brother snicker before she felt the wetness that meant she had wet the floor from the shock of it_

_“Told you,” he said, “Get them in here, and they’re nothing but barnyard animals beneath the skin – is that why the Dark One had you? Did you-”_

_“Peace, Brother,” the Eldest Brother said, turning those disapproving eyes on the two of them, “The Lady Belle is afflicted.” He caught Belle’s chin, just gently, and tilted her head up so that her eyes met his. “The path to forgiveness is long,” he said, “You can walk it, if you are willing, but it is only through tribulations that we mortals can aspire to the favour of the gods.”_

_Belle felt as if she was going to be sick, and for a moment was almost glad of the brothers’ bruising grip on her arms, for without it she was quite sure she would have overbalanced entirely as the world swam around her, and as she retched the lay brother who still had a hold of her released her in disgust._

_“Go,” the Eldest Brother said, glaring at the two of them, “And…Brother Ralston? A dozen lashes tonight, I think. Only the horsehair scourge, and do not break the skin.”_

_A low murmur of agreement that Belle couldn’t quite make out, and they were alone._

_“Do you hate me, Lady Belle?” the Eldest Brother said, as if he were asking her opinion on the day’s weather. Belle glowered up at him, blinking away blood, and he smiled. “Yes…I think so. It always was the way.” He reached down to brush away a strand of bloody, matted hair from where it had been plastered to Belle’s skin with sweat. “Children always resent the guidance of their elders.”_

_“Not a child,” Belle mumbled, her mouth feeling stiff and pained and clumsy, as another wave of nausea washed over her. She heard the Eldest Brother’s feet on the flagstones, and felt his hand on the back of her neck. It would be so, so easy for a strong man to break it here and now, and for all his age, the Eldest Brother_ was _strong._

_“We are all children in the eyes of the gods.”_

_Belle blinked away blood. “You do this to children?”_

_“If they merit it.” His hand brushed through her hair. “We do no kindness by withholding the chastisement that might save those we love. If you cared for the man the Dark One once was, you would not deny him that chance.”_

_Belle looked away. She had seen what ‘chances’ the clerics offered those they deemed beyond forgiveness. Fire cleansed the soul, they said, Belle had only seen a man burned once, on her one and only visit to King George’s capital. She had been only a girl then, but she still remembered how he screamed, and for months after that ill-fated visit she had avoided the castle kitchens assiduously, because the smell of cooking meat made her sick to her stomach with the memory. Her father’s name and the Reul Ghorm’s whim were all that kept her from that fate and it was- it had seemed a terrible way to die._

_“I will not.”_

_Even Belle was startled that she found the strength to say it. Beaten bloody, exhausted from night after night of broken sleep, shaking with cold and kneeling in a puddle of her own piss, the blood from her head trickling down slowly into her eyes and coagulating in the cold air, and yet she refused him. It didn’t feel like bravery. Belle would not call it bravery. It was merely stubborn habit now, the same stubbornness that had driven her on at the Dark Castle, to learn how to scrub a floor or wash clothes or cook so much as a plate of eggs for herself, all the while with Rumpelstiltskin at her shoulder, mocking her for her ineptitude. That was not what bravery was, Belle thought. It was impossible to feel really brave, kneeling here and knowing what awaited her, and so terrified of what was to come that she could hardly breathe. If she could have run, she would. The knowledge shamed her more than she could say, but there it was._

_The Eldest Brother’s face did not change as he stared grimly down at her. “I will have you taken back to your cell,” he said grimly, “And pray that you will yield before we are forced to harder methods of persuasion.”_

“Got to admit,” Emma said when they reached the stop, staring around at the ruined city, “I was expecting something a lot more…cottage-y?”

Mulan frowned at her, but then, Emma came out with so _many_ odd things that this was really fairly ordinary, and at least Emma had stopped asking if Mulan knew any songs that would make climbing the beanstalk go a bit faster, because that had just been bizarre. Then, her eyes dropped to Emma’s hand and she muttered something she most definitely would not have chosen to say in front of Aurora.

“Giants can smell blood,” she said, nodding at Emma’s injured hand, “I have bandages.” Well, she had a few clean rags, but there wasn’t much of a difference in practical terms. Emma gave her a faintly suspicious look, but held out her hand readily enough for Mulan to wrap it.

“So…what’s the plan?” Emma said, staring around at the ruined buildings and the great skeletons of the giants. The sight seemed to unsettle her, and Mulan was reminded again of how sheltered a life the people of Emma’s world seemed to lead.

Mulan too glanced around, quick and sharp to get her bearings, and nodded. “We use the powder. The hardest part will be getting close enough to the giant without him noticing us. Giants have no love for humans, and this one will have even less than his fellows.”

“If humans slaughtered everyone else he knew, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Emma said, rather more flippantly than Mulan was sure the situation warranted. “So, we knock out the giant, get into this vault thing and just…search until we find the compass? Did Belle even tell you what the compass looks like, because she never mentioned anything to me.”

“Not a word,” Mulan admitted, “But we don’t have another choice right now.” She nodded at the only building that was still mostly standing, “If we’re loud enough, we could lure him out, but it will be dangerous.”

Emma snorted. “Everything I’ve done since I got here’s been dangerous, what’s one more thing?”

That was, Mulan felt, rather ignoring that there were gradations of danger, but it wasn’t as if they had very many options as things stood. Then, her eyes fell on Emma’s bandaged hand. “If we could spill some of your blood outside his doors, that might work,” she suggested, “Giants have an incredible sense of smell – I’ve heard of them being able to tell which kingdom a person comes from just by scent.”

“What? As in ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman’? That sort of thing?”

“I don’t-”

Emma waved her off, “It’s…I don’t know, a line from a story I heard when I was a kid. The same one I heard about giants and beanstalks and some kid named Jack. Guess it was a bit more on-point than I was expecting.”

Mulan didn’t even want to touch that one – the bloody story of the Giant Wars was not one she had heard told more than once or twice, by ragged veterans gathered around a fire in the early days after the whole world had been torn apart around her. It was not a tale she would have thought fit to share with children.

“But, ok, blood,” Emma nodded, “Maybe we could try shouting or banging pots or something if that doesn’t work.” She went to tug off the rag from her bleeding hand, and Mulan produced another from the pouch at her waist, smaller but thicker. “We can lay this outside the door,” she said, “Giants are attracted to the scent of human blood.”

“We’ll have to be pretty high up,” Emma said consideringly, eyeing the various statues that lined the ruined square, “He’s supposed to breathe the powder in, and he can’t do it if we aren’t even at knee level. Which of those is highest?”

Mulan assessed the statues, then nodded to the one right next to the door. “That one,” she said, “And it’s close enough that he’s bound to pass by it. We attract his attention, and then throw it in his face. There’s enough powder there to knock out a good-sized human for three or four days.”

“Is that enough to knock out a giant for an hour or so?” Emma asked.

Mulan shrugged, “I don’t know. My people never warred with the giants.”

“Yeah. You were fighting…uh, Huns? Or was it Mongols?”

“Huns,” Mulan said, startled, “I didn’t think you knew anything about this world-”

“I don’t,” Emma admitted, “I saw a movie about it once. A movie’s…uh…”

Mulan shook her head, “Later,” she said in a low voice, “I don’t want that giant to find us before we’re in position.”

Emma was, it turned out, quite a strong climber, and Mulan was glad of the company as they ascended to the shoulder of the statue by the door. If the powder failed, Mulan’s sword had been enchanted generations ago by the dragon that had been her family’s guardian since time immemorial. It could kill a giant, if she knew where to aim, and even a pocketknife through the eye will kill most things.

They waited, in silence at first, but then Emma elbowed Mulan, “In the movie I saw…it’s kind of like a play? Only you can re-watch them any time you like, and sometimes it’s just animated drawings? It didn’t say anything about you knowing Aurora. I mean, there was a guy in it, but his name was Shang, and he-”

“He’s dead,” Mulan said plainly. “He died in the war with the Huns. Their Shan-Yu killed him.”

“He did? But I thought you killed Shan-Yu-”

Mulan stared fixedly down at the stones far, far below. “I did. I killed the Shan-Yu before the one that killed Shang – it’s a title, not a name.”

“Oh.” Emma fell silent. Mulan could feel the shape of the question that had not been asked, and said softly.

“In your Storybrooke, would it be possible, for two women-?”

“What- Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s been legal for years. You could even get married, in some places,” Emma added, giving Mulan an irritatingly _knowing_ look. Mulan only hoped the next words out of her mouth weren’t going to be ‘why do you ask’ in that irritating tone that meant that she knew damn well why Mulan was asking, but wanted to hear her admit it.

Fortunately, before she could, the sound of footsteps came from deeper in. Great, tremendous, earth-shaking footsteps that could only belong to one person in this godforsaken place.

She and Emma exchanged a look as the footsteps came nearer, underscored by the sounds of low growling, and then, a man so tall his head seemed to brush the sky stepped out into the dim starlight of the square. He was _massive_ , dressed in a long red robe like a prosperous merchant, his great brown beard bristling. Next to her, Emma whistled loudly, and Mulan collected herself to cry out, as loud as she could, the sound thin and oddly pathetic in the vastness of the giants’ city.

“HEY!” Emma yelled beside her, and the giant turned stooping slightly to see them better. If he did, he might not have seen it, as Mulan hurled the powder at his great face, and the giant keeled over, out cold.

Emma blinked. “Well,” she said, “That was surprisingly easy.”

“This part was,” Mulan admitted, “I don’t expect it to last. We should get down, and quickly, before he wakes up.”

This was rather easier than the climb up had been, though not by much, and even when they did manage to cautiously pick their way inside…most of the building didn’t seem to be a vault. It looked more like…well, someone’s house, and not a particularly comfortable someone, at that. It took them a while to find the storeroom door that led them through to the vault, and every moment, Mulan was looking over her shoulder just in case the giant had woken up again. She didn’t know how long the powder would last on something that size – she had seen a quarter of that amount kill a man before, but on a _giant_ , who knew what it would do?

And then, they were in the vault.

Mulan had never seen so many fine things so little regarded. There were coins, both human-sized and larger around than Mulan’s waist, gems of all sizes, and chests bursting with treasure.

“Did they kill all the giant housekeepers too?” Emma demanded, “Where’re we supposed to find a compass in this mess?”

“I don’t know,” Mulan said, staring around, “We should split up, cover more ground.”

Emma nodded. “Good idea- What the hell?”

Mulan followed her gaze, and saw a skeleton, lying there in the centre of the room. The sword in its hand did not look large enough to trouble a giant unduly, but there it was, written clearly at the top of the blade. ‘Jack’.

She looked up at Emma, “The blade is probably poisoned,” she said, “It’s the only way to kill a giant from ground level.”

“Makes sense,” Emma agreed, and cocked her head, catching Mulan by the arm before she could take another step. “Careful,” she said, “There’s a tripwire. That giant _really_ doesn’t want anyone coming in and taking anything else.”

Mulan nodded. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. Emma gave a strained smile and looked away, and they moved on.

Splitting up soon proved a futile endeavour, as much of the treasure was piled up higher than either of them could reach without the other to boost them, and the treasure-room was larger and fuller than Mulan had expected. She cursed herself now for her forgetfulness – of course a giant’s treasure-hall would be bigger than the greatest vault built by men, that was just a simple matter of scale, how _could_ she have not considered that it might be larger than could be searched in just a few hours?

“So it’s just…in here somewhere?” Emma said after more than an hour’s fruitless searching, looking around at the heaps of gold, the gems scattered carelessly across the floor, the chests and swords and chalices piled in the corners.

“So Belle claims,” Mulan said.

Emma gave her a sideways look. “Do you trust her?”

“If I knew she were herself, I would,” Mulan said simply.  “But that has no bearing on what she might do under Cora’s control.”

Emma looked alarmed by that, but she refocused quickly. “That is _not_ reassuring,” she muttered, and then her eyes flicked upwards. “I think there’s something up there, give me a boost?”

Mulan nodded, and made a stirrup of her hands for Emma to put her foot in. Between that and the wall, it wasn’t hard for Emma to get up, and she made a startled noise.

“That could be it, couldn’t it?” Emma said.

Mulan frowned. “What could?”

“There’s…looks like a locket or something, but it could be a compass just as well, couldn’t it?”

“I don’t know!” Mulan repeated, irritable, “Possibly, I suppose. Can you reach it?”

“Not quite- Ahh!”

Emma slipped, and swore, and then, from somewhere behind them, came a sound like a hurricane, a roar so loud it seemed to fill the whole vault. The giant was awake.

Emma sprang down moments too late, as the giant drew nearer. “We need to go,” Mulan said, almost hypnotised by the enormity of the creature in the doorway.

“No! Not without the compass!”

Mulan bit back a curse. “If we stay here, we’re both done for – you’ll be no good to your son dead!”

“I’m no good to him stranded here either!” Emma shot back.

“Hide, then!”

But it was too late to hide. They ran, hearing the giant’s thunderous footsteps behind them, the gold on all sides shaking and slipping as each footfall shook the ground. It was no use, though. The vault was sealed on all sides, and the only way out was behind the giant. Heaps of gold all around them, but none deep enough to hide two full-grown women – the vault was vast enough that enough gold to fill any king’s treasury past bursting was spread out in small, haphazard piles – and still the giant kept coming.

“MULAN!” Emma screamed, as one massive hand closed around Mulan’s waist. A mistake, as it turned out. The giant caught Emma in his other hand. Mulan couldn’t reach her sword, the giant’s grip was too tight, and growing tighter as he lifted them high, high into the air. Mulan looked up, knowing she was doomed, but refusing to show cowardice in the face of this monster, and hoped to all the gods that it would be quick.

_Cold water left no marks, and so it was not a cruelty. Nor yet was the breaking of her sleep, or the roughness of her jailors’ hands. If hands alone were used, the Reul Ghorm held, it did no harm. It took merely a month for the letter to arrive, bearing Earl Maurice’s seal and fulfilling the Reul Ghorm’s word. The Eldest Brother brought her down to hear it read. It contained much talk of repentance and virtuous chastisement and the hope of forgiveness, but what it said, beneath all those fine sentiments, was simple. The clerics had a free hand in their dealings with her now, and they would use it as they pleased. First came the lash, then the rack, and then the coffin – not spiked on the inside as the ones she had seen in books, but so tight she could not so much as roll from her back onto her belly, and dark, so dark, and close enough that she could hardly breathe._

_“Confess,” the Eldest Brother said, low and cold, as she was dragged out, gulping in great, heaving breaths of air. Belle glared, and spat, and held her silence._

_Fire cleansed the soul, they said, and it was fire that finally broke her. Everything they had used until then – the cold-water treatments, the scourges, the cold and the sleeplessness and the thousand petty degradations she had endured since she had been taken – she could bear, but_ fire _…the brand against still-healing wounds, pain so sharp and white-hot she seemed to feel it in every part of her and could not hold back her screams._

_“Confess,” said the soft voice said above her, after a small eternity of pain._

_She confessed. She said all she could about the life she had lived at the Dark Castle – about Rumpelstiltskin’s teasing in the first few weeks, and his kindness to her later, about how she had been able to talk him out of killing the thief, Robin Hood, how she had met a woman on the road who told her that true love’s kiss would break the Dark One’s curse, and what had happened when she had tried it. It had been working, she knew it had been working, but of all the things she had said, it was that which had earned her the next stroke of the branding iron. The Dark One is incapable of love, the brothers say, and her lies must be silenced. It was Brother Ralston who proposed that a tongue was no necessity for a noble daughter, still less for a noble wife. The Eldest Brother had denied him – to deny the repentant a voice to express their contrition was against the law of the Reul Ghorm. Belle had laughed at that. Everything had seemed funny in that moment, but all it had earnt her was another hard blow, bruises blooming blue across her skin._

_They had asked, again, for the dagger. She didn’t know. They pressed her harder, but she could not tell. She didn’t know if she would, if she knew, and that scared her more than the fire did, at least until the next of the branding irons touched skin. Then, she would have done anything to make it stop._

_But when they asked her, after, if she understood the nature of her sins, she had stared at them blankly. What could she say? This same cleansing would have awaited her no matter what she and Rumpelstiltskin had or had not done, and she knew what they thought now. It was no good to tell them that there had been no lewd and arcane rituals, no orgies, no violation before those they had committed. They hadn’t listened. By the third day, she had given up on convincing them._

_She could, if she repented, if she claimed Rumpelstiltskin had torn the knowledge from her mind, if she lied and said he had violated her or forced her into deeds he would never have contemplated, be free of it. She would never be Sir Maurice’s favoured, cosseted daughter again. Her value as a bride had diminished significantly when she went with Rumpelstiltskin, and melted away entirely when her father convinced himself of whatever it was he thought had happened between them at the Dark Castle. That did not mean she would die. If she repented, if she said all they wanted her to say and begged on her knees for the Reul Ghorm’s forgiveness, there was a chance at…a quiet life in a house of contemplation, a vow of silence and a bare, dull, lonely life, but a life all the same, and a life where there were no irons, no chains, no scourges._

_She wouldn’t do it. She didn’t know why. By then she would have licked their boots and called them lord if they would only have made it stop. But she would not give him up. She could not say he had been nothing but kind to her, but after the first few days he had never so much as raised his voice to her in anger until the end. He had seemed honestly more afraid of her than she was of him, by then, and looked at her sometimes as if…as if she were his only hope of salvation. It was the same look she had seen in the eyes of so many of her people as they had watched the men ride off to war, half hope and half terrible sadness. The one person in the world who had never treated her as anything less than she was, who had never doubted her word, who had never assumed her ignorant or weak or foolish…she couldn’t betray that. Even if he had forsaken her, she could not forget that her one year in the Dark Castle had felt freer than anything before or since, even when she had been technically a prisoner._

_If she were to say as much aloud, they would call her enchanted. They said that anyway, and she laughed darkly at their slowness._

_“What is it?” bellowed the big one, Brother Erich. Like many big men, he was uncomfortable with people who did not respond as he expected, who seemed unafraid of his strength. He could crush her like a leaf of lettuce, Belle knew, and most of the bruises that littered her face now had been his work, in one way or another. But she would rather Erich than Ralston._

_As if reading her thought, Ralston snickered. “She’s cracking up,” he said with relish, “They always do, in the end.”_

_Belle laughed again, higher and shriller, almost maddened, Ralston laughed too, thin and nasal. She would give quite a lot, she thought, to see Ralston beneath the lash. A true lash, not the fine hair things the brothers use on themselves. Belle’s back was a latticework of old scars now, she had felt them, run her fingers over the raised, hardened flesh and the weeping sores where the ends of the whip had broken off and lodged themselves beneath her skin. She thought of scales and nails like claws and laughed once again, and this time not even Ralston could find it funny._

Even seated, the giant stood taller than every building of the village Mulan had grown up in, and if he dropped her, it could kill her without so much as a hope of being able to resist. If she fought, she would die. It was a terrible feeling, for a warrior. Emma, though, was white and drawn and shaking in the giant’s other fist, and Mulan could not even cry out to her, the giant was clutching her so tightly, even as Mulan struggled to reach her dagger, her sword, _anything_.

“It’s-” Emma gasped out, “I’m not what you think!”

The giant’s grip grew tighter as it lifted Emma to its great bearded face. “You’re a thief, and you poisoned me. I’d say you’re _exactly_ what I think.”

“No!” Emma said, though her voice was even harsher now from lack of air, “You have a compass, I need it- Ahh!”

The giant’s grip on Emma seemed to have tightened still further.  “I don’t care what you need!”

“It’s no use, Emma!” Mulan managed to force out through the burning in her lungs, “He’ll kill us both whatever you say!”

This was, of course, the wrong thing to say as the giant swung Mulan up level with Emma, glowering down at them both. “Of course a human would say that,” he snarled, “You’re all killers – if I am, it’s because I learnt from you and your kind!”

“I heard it the other way,” Emma said, predictably, thoughtlessly fearless.

The giant snorted, “That’s because the winners are the ones who get to write the history.”

“Tell you what,” Emma said reasonably, “I’ll update my opinions on giants if you’ll give us a chance. I need the compass for my son, I have to get back to him-”

The giant snarled. “Did you really think I was going to see you again? I can _smell_ him on you.”

“What- Smell _who_?” But that was all Emma could get out, as the giant tightened his grip further and further – he would kill her, Mulan knew it, and like that, she knew what to do. She strained one last time, and reached the knife, driving it hard into the giant’s massive finger. The giant _howled_ , and his grip loosened, dropping them both to the floor.

“Thanks!” Emma gasped as they hit the giant’s massive boot, “Come on – this way! I think I have an idea!”

There was no time to ask what this idea was, because even as they ran the giant was regrouping, thundering after them, so that even with their head-start he was closing on them.

“This way!” Emma yelled, veering sharply back towards the door, and when Mulan saw the trip-wire, she knew what Emma was planning. She leapt, and as the giant closed on them, brought her sword down to cut through the rope, bringing a cage large enough to contain a small army crashing down on the giant’s head. Quite why a giant needed a trap that size to catch humans Mulan didn’t know, but then, maybe he hadn’t been able to make or find anything smaller. All she knew was that the cage came down with a sound like thunder, knocking the giant to the floor and making the whole room shake with the force of it.

Emma ran forward, and Mulan followed, her hand already on her sword.

“Nice security system,” Emma said breathlessly.

Mulan shook her head, “We should kill him,” she said shortly. “He would have done the same to us, and if he follows us trying to get revenge-”

“He’s the only one who knows how to get to the compass,” Emma interrupted, “And if we cut down the beanstalk once we’re down, he can’t follow us.”

The giant gave a low, sharp, bitter sort of laugh. “As if I don’t know you’ll kill me the moment you have what you want?”

“You don’t know me,” Emma said, and picked up Jack’s sword from where it lay, having been jarred clear of the cage by the force of the giant’s landing. The giant flinched back at the sight of it, and Emma gave a thin little satisfied smile.

“I know your kind! You massacred us, and destroyed our beans!”

Mulan frowned, “My people had no part in that,” she said.

“You’re human, aren’t you?”

Emma hefted the sword, “Maybe you’re telling the truth, maybe you aren’t,” she said, “We don’t have any way of knowing. Where is the compass? We won’t hurt you if you tell us.”

“He was willing enough to kill us,” Mulan snapped.

Emma raised her eyebrows, “And if we kill him, we prove him right,” she said. Of course she did. It was at times like this that Mulan could believe Emma was Snow’s daughter, however biologically infeasible it seemed the rest of the time. The sword was still perilously close to the giant face, and maybe that had more of an effect on the giant than Mulan had expected.

“Ok! Stop! Here!”

Something skittered, gleaming, across the floor, and Emma went for it, leaving Mulan to face down the giant.

“If this is a trap,” she growled, resting her hand on her own sword, “I will kill you myself.”

The giant’s expression didn’t change. But then…if he really was telling the truth…death would seem inevitable for him at this point anyway.

“It’s not!” Emma called, sounding slightly breathless, “It’s…it looks like a compass to me.”

The giant’s eyes met Mulan’s. “See?” he said simply. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

“Maybe you are right,” Emma said, drawing level with Mulan, “Doesn’t really matter. Are there any more of you?”

“No,” the giant said. “I’m alone.”

Mulan lowered her sword. “Will you give us your word that you will not harm us?” she asked.

“Would you believe it if I did?” the giant shot back bitterly, and then, seeing the look on Emma’s face, he sighed. “You have my word. I owe you one, human. You spared my life when you could’ve killed me. I’ll let you go.”

Mulan and Emma exchanged a look, and Emma nodded. It was quick enough work to cut through enough of the crossbeams on the giant’s trap to let him lift it enough to slip out from underneath, given time, and as he straightened, Mulan couldn’t help the frisson of nerves that skated through her – the Shan-Yu whose father she had killed had said he would return to the plains in peace, and they had let him, but he had returned with an army, and her friend and commander had paid the price for it.

“So…” Emma said, sounding slightly strangled now. “We’ll…uh…we’ll just go now, then?” Her eyes were already skating back towards the great doors at the head of the room.

“Go,” the giant agreed, “Before I change my mind.”

Mulan felt his eyes on them as they retreated, the back of her neck prickling in the certain knowledge that, if he were to change his mind, there would be little enough either of them could do about it.

“Do you trust him?” Emma asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.

Mulan shook her head. “We don’t have any choice,” she said plainly. “Don’t run. It might spook him into following, and I’m not sure we could reach the beanstalk in time.”

Emma glanced back at the giant, and something came over her face. “I don’t think he will,” she said, “If he seriously wanted us dead, we would be by now.”

“I don’t like this,” Mulan muttered, “Even if he is telling the truth, he was ready to kill us both back there.”

“Look,” Emma said reasonably, “If I ended up holding a grudge against everyone who ever tried to kill me, I wouldn’t have trusted _you_. I think we can give ‘Tiny’ back there the benefit of the doubt.”

Mulan…honestly wasn’t too sure of that, but Emma had placed her trust in Mulan even after their fighting over Phillip’s death. But the giant…if anyone had reason to want all humanity wiped from the face of the earth, it was him, if he had told the truth. Or even if he had not – his people were all dead, after all, down to the last woman and child. Mulan would not have taken such a loss with grace, and she wondered that he could.

_It was on the third day after her confession, as she lay sleepless in the grey light of dawn, her back a red ruin from where the scourges and the brands had done their work, that she saw the chain. When she had been brought and bound here, it had been whole, thick sturdy iron. Now…the chain did not gleam blackly as it had on the first nights of her confinement. The storms that swept in off the sea were harsh things, and every day there was the salt air, wearing slowly away at it. The clerics had not noticed, or perhaps they had not cared, for there were no handholds on those high smooth walls, and a long, long drop down to the sea._

_Wind and rain had worked on the chain for…how long, now? How long had it been? Weeks, months, years? The days had seemed to run into each other, and though she had begun by marking their passage with the sun, there was only so long that anyone could endure. Another woman might have thought ‘he will come for me’, but he would not. If he even cared to know that she had returned home, her fate must mean nothing to him. He had made that clear enough. He would spin and spin and spin and, with time, he would forget. And maybe, one day a long time from now, whatever other servant he had found by then to replace her would find her chipped cup and asked how it was it got broken, and Rumpel would not know. Maybe in the beginning of all this, she would have found that idea a comfort, but now it sat like a stone in the pit of her stomach, not ever at the forefront of her thoughts but always, always there. Her story would be written down in the Marchlands – a wilful daughter, a victim of the Dark One’s trickery, a moral lesson to be taught to other girls who read too much and spoke too boldly – and no-one would know the truth of it but him. She did not think she could bear it, to die here in this miserable place and have no-one to tell what had become of Belle of Avonlea but the very clerics who had killed her._

_They found her in the morning, soaked through from the rain that had come just after dawn broke, lying out on the bare platform of the old lighthouse, her long curls plastered to her back with blood and rainwater. They did not see, as she had done, the chain, streaked with red-brown rust. Or, close to the hub at the centre, the places where, industriously, she had rubbed iron on iron until rust and metal began to flake away. Once, perhaps, she would have quailed at the thought of what it was she was about to do, but now...she would die soon, whatever they did. What more had she to fear? She would be dead, and so beyond all further harm. She grinned mirthlessly up at big, quick-tempered Brother Erich._

_“Is this the best the Reul Ghorm could send?” she mocked, doing her best to ignore the dull, throbbing pain in her back, that made it hard to hold herself up straight. “I’ve had governesses who were better at getting a confession.”_

_“Shut it!” Erich snapped back, the little pouch of prayer-tokens at his belt hanging by a loosening knot – it wouldn’t be too hard to snatch one, if he would only rise to the bait._

_Belle laughed, low and rasping. “Touch a nerve? Let’s face it, if you couldn’t break one spoilt little noble girl after this long…”_

_“I told you to be quiet, you little whore!” Erich roared, and this time, Belle got what she had been after. He struck her hard across the face, not even noticing as his coin pouch slipped free of the cord that held it, sending the little silver medallions the clerics used as reminders of their oaths to the Fairy skittering across the floor. Belle palmed the one nearest her, feeling the words embossed out from the little silver disc digging into her skin, the edges worn down until they were very nearly dangerous to hold, a little sliver of iron coated in tarnished silver. She cried out, tightening her grip on the coin as one of Brother Erich’s massive booted feet caught her in the stomach, making her retch, though there was little enough in her stomach to bring up. One ham-like hand was in her hair, dragging her up, even as she spat blood at Erich’s boots, and grinned, wide and mad and unlike any expression her father would have recognised, if he could see his daughter now. She could feel the blood trickling down into her eyes from where the old cut on her temple had re-opened, and the stinging in her scalp where Erich’s great hand was knotted in her matted curls, and yet she laughed at him, because if she did not laugh, she would cry, and her pride would never allow that now. Besides, what reason did she have to weep? She would be free of him soon enough, free of them all soon enough, and the very thought of it gave her a sort of strength of despair. Let them do what they liked to her now, soon she would be beyond it all._

_“Enough!” the Eldest Brother thundered, and Erich let go of her, as if she had turned beneath his hand from woman to snake, her fangs dripping venom as she twisted in his grip._

_Belle snickered again – everything seemed amusing to her, just then – “What a shame! He wouldn’t have killed me, yet – isn’t that what you wanted. But, no!” she raised the less painful of her arms, put one hand to her mouth theatrically. “I forgot! Anger is a sin! Beat me all you please, but heaven forfend any of you get any pleasure out of it!”_

_He frowned down at her. Not a glower, or anything that could be described so passionately, and that was almost the worst thing of all. “Curb your tongue, child, before worse harm befalls you.”_

_Belle’s lips curled into something like a smile, “How very kind of you to think of me! But worse harm…well…” she shrugged painfully, the still-healing lashes on her back screaming in protest, “We’ll see about that.”_

_It took days, even so. Weeks, maybe, but Belle’s grasp on time had never been especially clear. The coin was softer than she would have preferred, but the rains and the salt air had done their work well. Night by night, sleepless, she chipped away at the chain. Some nights she could hardly lift her head for weariness, barely move her hands for the pain, but still, she kept on._

_The moon was dark, the night she finished. There would be no-one to see her go. The chain was not cut through, not entirely. It didn’t need to be. She walked out to the very edge of the tower. On another night, she might’ve seen the moon reflected on the waves, she might have looked out to sea and seen light. Not tonight. It was as black as the inside of a cat. And, without thinking about it, with the awful, purposeless, inevitable movements of a sleepwalker, she stepped forwards and let herself drop._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, before anyone overreacts, remember these are flashbacks, and look at the warnings.


	4. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of the bridge chapter, and it took me a while to work things out so that things turn out the way I'd like them to, so here goes.

Snow hadn’t meant to get so far away from the others, but since the curse had ended she had had so little time to herself that when the chance had come she had all but leapt at it. Mary Margaret Blanchard sat in her mind like an egg not yet laid, and the headache she had claimed when she wandered away from their camp had been more than just an excuse. It hurt, to have a whole second mind chattering away inside her own, not fully part of her but not as far detached as Snow would have liked, either. Mary Margaret Blanchard had been _made_ to make Snow’s life a misery. That was the one thing Emma did not, could not understand. She remembered Mary Margaret as her friend, a friend she had now lost almost entirely, and gained instead a mother she was not sure she wanted. Oh, Snow knew all of that. She remembered enough of that dreamlike half-life she had lived all those years in Storybrooke to know what Emma had thought, the one time they had got on to talking, over a bottle of wine, about their families, or what they had thought were their families in those days. So far, they had got along well enough just not talking about it as far as possible, and Snow…Snow had never prepared for this. She had thought, right up until the end, that she would be going through to the other side with her daughter, that she would bring Emma up herself and see all the things she and Charming had dreamt of in the early days before they had known what was coming for them. She almost envied Ella, in a way. Ella had her smiling, dimpled baby in her arms, and Snow…she had her daughter, grown and as tall as she was, and who had been hurt so much and so badly that it broke Snow’s heart to think about it. And she couldn’t offer comfort, couldn’t do anything to help, because Emma still didn’t trust her – might never trust her entirely.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Emma appeared through a gap in the treeline, stepping gingerly from root to root.

“What are you doing?” she demanded in a near-whisper, looking warily around at the undergrowth.

Snow shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts and failing, “Uh- Just thinking,” she said hastily, hoping Emma wouldn’t pry any further.

“Come on,” her daughter replied, a bright, sharp, intense sort of look on her face, “Mulan has some ideas where Cora might be hiding.”

Snow scrambled to her feet and followed Emma down and into the clearing where they’d made camp, past Aurora, asleep under a makeshift tent, and Belle, who was sitting there, still awake and watchful, fingering the stump of her severed arm. Snow didn’t like to look at it for long – it made something painful lurch inside her, to know that she herself was the cause of it. If she hadn’t defied Regina all those years, would Belle have been hurt at all? She didn’t know, but the part of her that had been Mary Margaret Blanchard would not be silent. Mulan was a little way off, having apparently decided that Belle, unarmed and one-handed, could pose no threat to Aurora on her own, but they were hardly out of the clearing before they heard Aurora scream.

Belle was at Aurora’s side when Snow and Emma reached them, her good arm slung loosely around Aurora’s shoulders.

“It’s all right,” she was murmuring, in a low voice that did not quite manage to be comforting, “It isn’t here. It can’t hurt you now.” She reached out with the stump of her wrist as if to brush Aurora’s tears away, but jerked back at the last minute, her eyes on something behind Snow and Emma. “I haven’t harmed her,” Belle said, though not to Snow, or to Emma. “She had- I think it must have been that nightmare again, it was why she called for Snow.”

Snow ignored her, concentrating on murmuring soothing nonsense, Aurora gripping her hand so tightly Snow could almost _hear_ the bones creak. Behind her, Emma was talking to- It must

be Mulan who had come, Snow recognised the voice, and the worried, protective tone of it.

“It _wasn’t_ just another nightmare,” Aurora gasped out, looking pale and drawn, “This time it was different – there was a little boy. He- He put out the fire. He talked to me.”

Behind her, Snow could almost feel Emma tensing.

 An awful, leaden feeling settling in the pit of her stomach, Snow asked: “A little boy?”

“What’d he say?” Emma asked, her voice uncharacteristically gentle.

“He said-” Aurora swallowed. “He said his name was Henry.”

Snow didn’t need to look at Emma’s face to know the terror she’d see there, but she did anyway. She couldn’t seem to help herself.

“What is it?” Mulan asked, “What’s wrong.”

Emma shook herself, and produced her wallet from the inside pocket of her leather jacket, picking out what Snow recognised with a jolt as Henry’s last school photo. “The boy you saw in your dream,” she said, her voice barely shaking. “Is that him?”

Aurora grasped the picture, very delicately between two fingers, and looked down at it. “Yes. That’s Henry.”

Emma had gone as white as milk. “That’s impossible,” she breathed, meaning, of course, that she didn’t want it to be possible.

Snow stood, her mind whirling, and took a few frantic steps away from Emma and Belle and Aurora. Belle’s eyes followed her, but the other two were two wrapped up in their own conversation. She had to tell them. There was no going back from that now, not now she knew that it wasn’t just- just lingering pain from the curse, just something like a healing scab somewhere in the fabric of her dreaming mind.

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” she said, cutting into the others’ conversation, and wrapping her arms tight about herself to contain her shivers.

Emma looked around, “What?” she demanded.

“That room,” Snow said, “I’ve been there.”

Aurora stared at her, “When I told you about it, you didn’t say anything.”

“Am I to assume,” Belle said from where she was still sitting in the tent Emma and Aurora had just vacated, “That an explanation amounting to ‘for your own good’ will be forthcoming?”

It was quite startling, Snow thought, how much vitriol Belle could pack into just four words.

“She was terrified,” she retorted, and looked back at Aurora, “I didn’t want to make things worse by telling you I thought it might be real.”

Belle made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat.

“A room in a dream is real?” Mulan asked, flatly disbelieving.

Snow looked around. “The sleeping curse,” she said. “It has to be. I went through it, Aurora went through it…”

“Henry’s been through it because I wouldn’t believe him.” Emma’s face was white and waxy, wide-eyed. She looked as though she might be sick. “Regina did that to him – why did I ever leave him in the same town as that-”

“Emma,” Snow started, trying to be reassuring, but Emma’s head snapped back up, glaring accusingly at her.

“What else did you lie about?” Aurora demanded, and from the look on her face, Snow knew Emma was wondering the same thing.

“I wasn’t lying, I was protecting you-”

“I’ve heard that before,” Belle said, still sitting cross-legged in the tent, and made a fierce, slashing motion with her stump. “You’d be _amazed_ , how often I ended up worse off because someone was trying to protect me.”

“I thought you said it was cut off for thievery,” Mulan said, frowning at Belle.

Belle shrugged. “That was broadly true.”

“What did he say?” Emma demanded, white and shaking now. “Henry, in the- in the dream?”

Aurora looked at her, “He just said his name, and then I woke up. And then it was over.”

“Emma,” Snow said, wanting to step closer, put a hand on Emma’s arm, but knowing it would be shrugged away. “It’ll be ok.”

Emma laughed harshly. “We are so _very_ far from ok!”

“No. We have a way home now.” Snow was sure of it, as sure as she had been of anything in her life. If Aurora could talk to Henry, and Henry was free and awake on the other side…

Emma rolled her eyes, “We have a _compass_! And the wardrobe ashes are still with Cora!”

“Any attempt to steal from her would be suicide!” Mulan protested, “Especially when she already has a spy in our camp.”

“You realise I’m sitting right here, don’t you?” Belle said pleasantly. “Though, I really don’t see what your concern is.”

Snow stared at her. “What?” she said flatly.

“Well,” said Belle, shrugging fluidly. There was something peculiar in her voice now, something Snow wasn’t altogether sure she liked. “You managed to capture Rumpelstiltskin once, I heard. Surely Cora will not be any more difficult than the Dark One himself.”

Snow stared. “Where…where on earth did you hear that?”

“From a traveller,” Belle replied lightly. “Before I came to Mulan’s village. She said you had caged the Dark One himself in your castle. And…well, I wondered. Could locks and bars really contain the greatest power in our world?”

Snow stared at her, her mind humming, even as Aurora asked.

“Is- Is this true?”

Emma too was looking stunned at the revelation. “You- You’ve known a way all this time?” she asked, sounding betrayed.

“No-” Snow said hastily, frowning to herself. She didn’t- She couldn’t…she did. The quill! The quill the Blue Fairy gave them, the quill that was still there, somewhere in the castle, for what thief could begin to comprehend its true value... “But…I think I’m beginning to.”

_When she came to, she could not move. Every part of her ached, a dull, throbbing pain, not quite that of the lash but something close to it. A pain with hard edges, like something lodged in the depths of her, digging in. She had broken limbs before, as a child, when she had climbed trees and ridden horses and lived freer than she had been since her blood had come for the first time, but this was beyond that, a pain almost equal with the fire. The least movement sent fresh waves of pain thrumming through her, but her throat was so raw she could do nothing but whimper when she wanted more than anything to scream._

_“-landed in the midden,” she heard a voice saying nearby, “She was very fortunate, my lord. The chain was not all the way sawed through, and though it did snap in the end, the drop by then was not so terrible as it might have been. And there is the Reul Ghorm’s blessing to think of, too. She will live, and as hale and sound as ever she was.”_

_“-cannot begin to thank you…Belle, oh, my poor Belle…quite sure you can do as you say?”_

_“Absolutely, Lord Maurice,” said a new voice, a woman’s. Belle tried to open her eyes, but after so long in near-darkness, even candlelight felt blinding. “I promise you,” the woman’s voice went on. “By the time I am done with her, she won’t even remember his name.”_

_A hand brushed over Belle’s hair, and she made a low, pained, querying sort of noise, forcing her eyes open against the light to see…dark eyes and dark hair, lips as red as blood and an awful, cruel smile._

I know you, _she wanted to say._ You’re _her_. You were the one who told me…

_Hope, long unlooked-for, flooded through her. This woman knew her, whoever she was, and whatever she could want, it could not be worse than what the clerics had already done. And, who knew, maybe if she was no further use, if there was no effect that keeping her could have…she could be free again. The thought made her almost giddy, and she tried to force out words through the dryness of her throat, the awful drowsy heaviness that dulled all feeling but pain._

_“Mmmph?” was all she could manage, her tongue feeling almost like a lead weight behind her teeth._

_Behind the woman from the forest, Belle could see her father’s drawn, worried face, and felt…nothing. Not love, not hate, not anger at how she had been treated. It was as if she’d been hollowed out. Her eyes fell closed again against the brightness of the room, but she could still hear, close by, her father’s voice._

_“-don’t like this. You can promise it, not even a memory of him?”_

_“I assure you, Lord Maurice. The mind of such a…malleable young girl…is not so very hard for a skilled sorcerer to alter.”_

_Malleable. Belle wanted to laugh, but all that came out was an awful, wheezing noise, like a bellows with a tear all through it, breathy and hissing and terrible._

_The worst of the pain was beginning to recede now, though the dryness in her throat and a taste in her mouth as if something small and scaly had crawled under her tongue and died there still remained._

_She drifted in and out of consciousness after that. She remembered, later, waking briefly, fitfully, as strong hands grasped her, lifted her broken body and carried her away._

_She came to, finally, draped across a long, padded seat in the same carriage she had seen on the road from the Dark Castle. Her wrists were bound in iron manacles, but the pain that had seemed so all-consuming before had faded._

_“Oh, do sit up,” said the woman from the forest, giving her a poisonously sweet smile. “You want to see your people, don’t you? Look.”_

_She made a dismissive gesture, and Belle felt herself dragged upright, only to sag against the windowframe, breathing hard. She felt exhausted, numb and heavy and_ odd _, as if her skin had been taken off and laundered, and shrunk somehow in the washing, so that it felt ill-fitting and cumbersome over muscle and bone._

_She blinked, not quite able to believe what she saw. The carriage was rattling through Avonlea, and there, outside, were her people. They were staring at the carriage, solemn and wide-eyed. Belle saw a mother shoving her little daughter behind her, saw shutters slamming closed and, closer to, several of the crowd making the sign against evil. She met the eyes of one old man, and saw him backing away, his shaking hands held out as if she might leap from the carriage and spring at him._

_They were afraid of her. She, who had never done a thing to harm them. She had given herself entire into Rumpelstiltskin’s keeping to keep them safe, and even if she knew now that he would not have hurt her, they did not. She had given all she had, and considered it a fair trade, and now they feared her because she had dared do what no-one else could have. She had ended the war, driven the ogres away from their homes and fields and villages, she had given them safety and as much prosperity as could be had, and now they feared her? For a moment, the sheer unfairness of it all washed through her, and she tasted bile. She should have left them to the ogres, she thought, feeling the healing scars on her back ache as if in memory. She waited for the flood of guilt to come, the thoughts that said it was_ wicked _of her to think like that, but it never came._

_“I have use for you,” said the woman from the forest, “I suppose you know by now who I am.”_

_Belle shook her head. She didn’t feel up to speech just yet, though the pain in her throat was all but gone. Then, a thought struck her._

_“You healed me,” she croaked, for it had to be that. She knew a fall such as that she had suffered ought to have killed her, and if it had not, she ought to have been at death’s door for days, and months after that all but immobile from the shattering of her limbs._

_“That I did.” The woman sounded amused. “I had no use for you broken by any hand but mine.”_

_The carriage sped up as they left Avonlea, leaving Belle’s home and people far behind them, but Belle could not have cared less what it was they were leaving, for surely it had done her no good before. She lolled against the frame of the carriage, watching the woman from the forest through narrowed eyes._

_“I won’t betray him,” she ground out, though it cost her more than she thought it ever would, to give up this one, last hope of safety. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you told me…” she broke off, her voice too weak to continue, the burning in her throat flaring up again still harder._

_The woman leaned forward, smiling wider. “You will,” she said. “You won’t be able to help it. By existing in the world, you have betrayed him. Love is weakness, my dear,” she said, sitting up straight again and smoothing her skirts, “The sooner you know that, the better off you’ll be.”_

“I don’t like this,” Mulan said, as they tramped onwards, not wanting to remain long enough in one place for Cora to catch up with them.

Belle made an amused noise, somewhere between a snort and a growl, “From what I can make out, this happens whenever Aurora goes to sleep,” she pointed out, “You can hardly force her to stay awake forever. Well, not without killing her, anyway, which would seem rather self-defeating, if you want to keep her safe.”

Snow nodded, more to herself than Belle. “I- I had those dreams every night for more than a year after I woke up,” she agreed. She didn’t feel it right to say that it had only been the Curse that stopped the dreams, that that was the reason why she had been so certain that there was real magic in what Aurora had seen.

“So Henry- He- He’ll be trapped in that netherworld every night?” Emma looked horrified, and Snow hurried to calm her.

“We don’t know that. When we get home, we can try to find out how long the dreams last – there might be something out there that can help with it. Even since the curse broke, I haven’t had the dreams. It could be that they just…run their course, and then they’re gone, like…like a broken bone,” Snow tried, “It hurts for a long time after the break, but in the end it heals, and if you’re lucky there’s nothing but a twinge in cold weather afterwards.”

“But you don’t know that!” Emma protested, looking furious. “I should have known – remind me, why did we even _bother_ to save Regina? Right now it’s starting to sound like getting her soul sucked out by that flying Dementor rip-off is just what she deserves!”

Snow stared at her. “What’s brought this on?” she asked. Emma had been one of those who had pushed hardest for them to spare Regina, if only for Henry’s sake, and now, here she was.

“Mulan told me about what she did,” Emma said mulishly, “And now I find out this? Why didn’t anyone think it was important to mention that I left my son in Storybrooke with a child murderer running around loose?”

“She won’t be running around loose,” Snow said, trying to be comforting, “If your father has any sense, she’ll be back in the cell in the Sheriff’s office.”

Emma shook her head, “We can’t keep her in there forever,” she said resignedly. “It’s not made for it, and if she has magic-”

“We’ll figure it out.” Snow raised a hand to shade her eyes, glad for the excuse to change the subject. “There. That looks like relatively safe high ground. We’ll make camp there. Aurora, we shan’t force you, but could you go under and try and find Henry? Tell him…” she looked over, rather hopelessly, at Emma.

“Tell him we’re safe,” Emma said quickly, “And that we’re close to finding a way home – this quill thing of Snow’s. And-” she shook her head, “Never mind, he knows.” She glanced back at them. “We do this fast, in and out, it’s still dangerous out here.”

“And what if your son isn’t asleep right now?” Belle asked from the back. “He wasn’t, when we tried this last night.”

“Then we try again,” Aurora said, surprising everyone. “As often as it takes.” She shot a tentative smile at Snow, “He has the right to know his mother is still alive.”

“Aurora!” Mulan hissed, sounding horrified. “You saw what it did to your arm-”

“I’ve made my decision, Mulan!”

Emma looked back again, “You know, after long enough without sleep, it’s more like being drunk,” she said casually, “Which…I don’t know what the effects of this whole burning-room thing are, or how long they last, but with Cora after us, being that impaired is probably worse.”

“Thank you,” Belle said, nodding at her. “Mulan, I really don’t see Aurora has a choice about sleeping. And since it’s going to happen either way, we might as well make use of it.”

It was irritatingly practical advice, and Mulan didn’t seem to like the idea any better for it, but at least there was no more arguing as they went to break camp.

Aurora was out like a light when she was finally allowed to lie down, but Mulan had kept her up most of the last night, after Belle had seen the fresh burns on her arm when she’d awoken, so that wasn’t so far out of the ordinary. Mulan had taken up a position close by her side, and Belle too seemed to prefer being in the shade of the tent, leaving Snow and Emma alone, a little way off from the others, ostensibly to keep watch, though more probably to give Aurora some modicum of privacy as she slept.

“Hey,” Snow whispered, catching Emma’s hand, “It’ll be ok, you’ll see Henry again. This’ll work.”

Emma fixed her with a frank, disbelieving look. “A quill? We’re staking all our lives on a _quill_? A quill that might not even still be in the castle! The more I hear about it, the more contrived it all sounds!”

“I know it sounds silly,” Snow agreed, “But it was enchanted by the Blue Fairy, to capture Rumpelstiltskin and bind his powers, so he wouldn’t take Cinderella’s child. The magic in it was enough to contain the Dark One himself, and Cora is nowhere near on his level of power.”

Emma snorted, “She seems plenty powerful to me,” she muttered.

“She is,” Snow admitted. “One of the most powerful mortal sorcerers in this world. And still, in terms of raw power, she can’t hold a candle to Gold. She might be trickier,” she acknowledged, “But with the quill, that shouldn’t matter.”

There was a rustling in the bushes, and Emma started. “What was that?”

“Probably just an animal,” Snow said, though her hand was on her quiver already, waiting to draw out an arrow. When Snow looked back, Mulan had her sword half out of its scabbard, and she could tell that all of them were thinking the same thing.

When the first of the…Snow could only call them ‘zombies’, for there had been no word she knew in this world for the walking corpses shambling towards them…appeared out of the treeline, Mulan was at Aurora’s side in an instant, while Snow and Emma engaged the zombies. Arrows would do Snow no good here, that was clear within moments, but without a good bladed weapon she could see little enough in the way of killing them, or at least cutting them into enough pieces that they wouldn’t be able to pursue the rest of them. Mulan and Aurora had disappeared, and there was no sign of Belle as they fought, desperately trying to beat the things back with so very, very little to work with.

“Emma! Watch out!” Snow called, as Emma, fresh from dispatching the corpse in front of her, wheeled to face the one behind her, which tackled her and sent her sprawling, something golden and surprisingly solid flying out from the inside of Emma’s jacket. The compass!

And then, apparently from out of nowhere, a sword embedded itself in the nearest zombie’s head. Mulan was standing there, looking grim.

“Where’s Aurora?” Snow demanded, knocking the zombie back with a swing of her club, but unable to do much more, “Don’t stab, _cut_!” she added, as Mulan dragged her sword out of the creature’s skull, “I thought she was with you!”

“She is,” Mulan admitted, “She didn’t want to leave you behind.”

Across the clearing, Emma seemed to be having as hard a time as they were, but with so many zombies of her own to worry about, Snow couldn’t get to her. She had reckoned without Belle.

Belle, who had apparently wrested a blade off one of the zombies and was now swinging it in her good hand, slashing frantically at the living corpses all around them. It was not a very effective showing, Snow had to admit – she seemed to have trouble with the concept of slashing, rather than stabbing, her enemies, and she kept swinging the stump of her other wrist around, as if more used to wielding a dagger or some other small weapon in her off-hand – where had an ordinary, thieving peasant-girl learnt how to do that?

“We’re going to have to run for it!” Snow called out, but how to do that, so separated and with still no sign of Aurora?

“This way!” Mulan cried, and, having no other option, Snow followed, Emma and Belle bringing up the rear and the zombies still close on their heels.

_For the third time in her life, Belle found herself in a dungeon. This was a true dungeon, not the rarely-used storerooms beneath the Dark Castle that Rumpelstiltskin had adapted for the purpose, or the high, bare tower where the clerics had kept her. It was dark and deep, all bare stone, with ring-marks in the walls where her chains were fastened, to keep her from attacking her captor even if she had the strength so to do. The door slammed, and she was left alone._

_She had fallen out of the habit of marking off the days in the Reul Ghorm’s tower, could not have said, now, what the date was, or the time, or where it was she was being kept. Only that it was dark, and cold, and damp, and very nearly silent. In the first few days and weeks, she sang, and talked to herself, and screamed her throat hoarse just to hear another voice, but sooner or later the silence won out. It always did, in the end._

_Singing was easier than speaking, because talking to oneself, that was a sign of madness, but to sing to yourself…well, that was only singing, only practicing, only passing the time. She had grown up by the sea, she knew the songs and the way they ran._

_“…the Greyhound’s sinking in the waves, as fast the sea receives her…”_

_“…’cause her hair was green as seaweed, her skin was blue and pale, I loved that girl with all my heart…”_

_“…gods damn them all, I was told…we’d fire no guns, shed no tears…now I’m a broken man on an Avonlea pier…”_

_Her throat was raw from singing after long enough, with hardly a drop of water to wet her throat, hardly more to eat than thin broth, just water with a bone boiled in it and hardly enough to keep body and soul together. Still, she kept on, because if she stopped, if she was silent, if she let herself think of it that she would die there, it would drive her mad._

_She had not seen another human face in so, so very long. The woman from the forest did not come down to see her, and the guards waited outside. She could hear their voices, sometimes, though never for very long. In her mind, she devised whole conversations she could have had with them, could almost hear them aloud._

_“Hearing voices, dearie? That’s never a good sign.”_

_She rolled over, in the dark of her cell, too weak now from hunger to do anything else. “’s you…” she slurred, running her tongue over her loosening teeth. “I didn’t think…how’re you here?”_

_“Oh, I’m not, dearie,” the thing that looked like Rumpelstiltskin twittered brightly, “I am just a fabrication created by your very lovely mind. They do say prisoners go mad, and here I am, to prove it!”_

_“Oh.” So she had gone mad. Belle considered this. Well, it wasn’t as if going mad could be any worse than anything else that had happened to her so far. It was a nice day for it, or so she assumed –  being underground, it was difficult to tell for sure. She laughed, high and slightly mad. “Go on, then,” she said absently, “Say whatever you’re here for.”_

_“Why haven’t you called him?” the false Rumpelstiltskin asked – but, no, now it was Brother Ralston, she could see the wrinkling of his nose as he said ‘him’, as if even this evasion of Rumpelstiltskin’s name was revolting to him. “Your precious Dark One. Why haven’t you asked him if he’ll aid his little pet?”_

_“No good,” Belle slurred, “He’d never…don’t…”_

_“Now, don’t fool yourself, dearie,” said the vision, which all at once was Rumpel again, “I know you know as well as I do what you saw that day. True Love’s Kiss, the most powerful magic in any realm. And True Love’s Kiss wouldn’t have worked, dearie, unless there was True Love there already.”_

_“The girl he loved…” Belle mumbled. The girl Rumpelstiltskin had loved had been…sweet, she thought, with the slightly pitying edge of one who knew that that was something she never would be again. She had been…naïve, was the word that presented to her, her as she was now. She had been a great many things that she, the beaten prisoner lying in this cell, hardly strong enough to lift her head, was not._

_“Really, dearie, you’re missing the most obvious point,” said the false Rumpel, leaning in close, so that his wide grin was inches from her face, close enough she could have felt it, if he were only real. “Does he know what has become of you? Does he know, what you are now? And you might escape him, but you should never escape_ her _.”_

_There had been a time, not so very long ago, when she would not even have thought of such a deception, when the very thought of cheating anyone would have been anathema to her. But then, there had been a time when she had been certain in her father’s love for her, when she had prayed to the Reul Ghorm like a good girl and loved her people above all things._

_“R’mplestiltskin,” she slurred, and then, more clearly. “Rumpelstiltskin! Rum-mmph!”_

_A great, mailed hand had clapped over her mouth – she had not even heard the guard come in. She tried to bite down, but the chainmail only hurt her teeth, and the man who held her was three times her size, even if she had been in any position to fight him._

_“Very good, my Huntsman,” said the low, cruel voice of the woman from the forest, and when she looked up into his face, Belle saw the guard that held her looked every bit as terrified as she felt, his face pale and drawn and oddly waxy. “I had thought I had a little more time before this little bird tried to slip her cage,” she said, tilting up Belle’s chin. Belle bit her fingers._

_The woman from the forest jerked her hand back with a hiss. “So, the little maid has teeth,” she said, sounding horribly amused. “Hold her!”_

_Belle’s head was wrenched back as, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the woman from the forest produce a bottle of something poisonously green and viscous. She twisted in the guard’s grip, but she couldn’t get far, as the mouth of the bottle was put to her lips and upended. She tried to seal her mouth as far closed as she could get it, but still the potion trickled through, thick and cloying and_ foul _._

_The guard let go of her hair, letting her drop to her knees on the bare stone floor, the sticky remains of the potion running down her chin._

_The woman from the forest smiled down at her, viciously, and spoke…a word. Belle did not recognise it. It disappeared from her mind as soon as it was spoken, leaving no hint of the shape of the word itself behind._

_Something in Belle’s face seemed to please the woman, for she laughed then, and stalked out of the room, in such a fug of self-satisfaction that Belle wished she had something to throw._

_She swallowed, and tried again, to summon him there, her lover, her friend, to call his name to memory- But no memory came._

_Her breath caught in her throat. She racked her brains, trying to remember it – had it begun with ‘R’ or ‘S’ – maybe it had been ‘C’, already that vague echo of memory was beginning to slip away from her. She remembered him, his changing eyes, the golden scales that covered his skin, glistening in the candlelight of the Dark Castle, she remembered his sly humour, the deftness of his hands on the spinning-wheel, the way she had made him so tongue-tied and awkward it was almost sweet. She remembered, it felt, almost everything of him…except his name._

_She screamed, then, long and loud and high, a scream that felt as if it ought to have shaken the whole dungeon apart, and threw herself against the door, howling her grief and rage and pain until she was spent, screaming threats and dire imprecations. Let them all burn, let them all drown, let the world end in blood and fire, for what had the world ever done for her but deliver her to the one place in the world where she had, for a little while, been free?_

“Aurora?” Mulan called, as they grew farther and farther away, “ _Aurora_?”

“I’m here,” called back a familiar voice, “I’m…I’m all right.” Aurora stumbled out of the undergrowth, “They didn’t seem to want to catch me,” she said, sounding puzzled.

Emma gave Belle a shrewd look, and caught her by the shoulder, “Probably because they were only the distraction,” she said, “Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Belle gasped, still breathless, and clutching the sword in one hand. Emma stamped down hard on her foot, and she gasped, but didn’t drop her weapon.

“The compass. I know you have it. I saw you pick it up. Did you slip it to one of them to carry back to Cora?”

Snow saw the look on Belle’s face. “You know she can’t help it,” she said, “And she couldn’t tell us even if she has. Belle, I’m going to search you, now. You can struggle, but it won’t help, and I will try to be as gentle as possible, ok?”

What Belle said next was not at all ladylike, and only cemented Snow’s certainty that something had gone wrong here, something important. If she were only a thief, how had she learnt to fight, and fight with the wrong hand, for she knew Belle was not left-handed by choice.

Belle didn’t nod, but they didn’t have time for anything less invasive, so Snow started checking her over, hoping that Belle hadn’t chosen anywhere too private to keep the compass with her. Snow found it, in the end, tucked demurely into Belle’s bodice, the chain looped twice around the strap, where her long hair would hide it.

“That’s it?” Emma asked, looking positively weak with relief. “But…hang on, if you already had the compass…why fight for us back there? You- She has your heart, your family, why would you…?”

Belle shrugged, “Cora still has hope that she’ll catch up to us. The villagers were probably meant to steer us towards an ambush, make sure that we’re where Cora wants us for…well, whatever it is she means to do next.”

Emma and Mulan shared a worried look over Snow’s shoulder, and Snow felt an odd coil of irritation at their doing so.

“Yeah,” Emma said suspiciously, “It’s kind of incredible, how often you’ve narrowly avoided getting killed by Cora. I thought you were meant to steal the compass and sneak off in the night, weren’t you?”

“That was the plan,” Belle admitted, “But you keep that compass very well-hidden, and I’m not that skilled a thief.”

“A thief,” Snow repeated, “Who can sword-fight.”

Belle shrugged, “Anyone can grab a sword and flail around with it,” she said modestly, “I’m no expert.”

“Yes,” Mulan said simply. “You are. You fought with your weaker hand, and even if your technique was off, they weren’t the mistakes an amateur would make. Who are you. Who are you _really_? We need to know.”

Belle sighed. She looked, in that moment, very small, and very fragile. “I suppose I can’t hide it any longer,” she muttered, and straightened a little. “My name is Belle of Avonlea. My father was Lord Maurice of Avonlea, gone these thirty years.”

“A noblewoman,” Aurora says, brightening slightly, “I thought you must be – it’s the voice,” she said defensively, under Emma and Mulan’s judging eyes. “You don’t – I’m sorry, but you don’t _speak_ like someone who is used to being ruled.”

Snow thought back, “I thought Lord Maurice’s daughter died,” she said slowly, “At the end of the Ogre Wars. They said she had died…”

Belle smiled thinly. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No, it’s just- How did you even survive that? And why did everyone think you were-” Snow broke off. “This is a trick,” she said, certain of it now.

“It isn’t,” Belle replied, “I was born Belle of Avonlea, but…” she bit her lip. “During the war, I made a deal. A deal to save my home and my family.”

“The Dark One,” Mulan said, in a tone of realisation. Of course. What noble family would not rather claim their child dead than in debt to a creature such as that?

Belle nodded. “Just so.”

“And he had you do…what? What did he want you to give him?” Emma demanded.

“Just my service,” Belle replied, a bit too casually, “For as long as he needed it. After a while, he let me go, and here I am. I learnt…a lot of strange things, working for him.”

“I bet you did,” Emma muttered under her breath, “You got the message to Henry?” she demanded, looking back at Aurora, who nodded jerkily.

“Yes…I mean, I think so. He was there, and glad to know you’re both alive,” she added, apparently feeling the need to say something of that nature.

“Good,” Emma said, “We should break camp, try to move on, before those things catch up with us again. With any luck, we’ll be home in a matter of days.”

_She did not know how long it had been since his name was lost to her, when the man came to her cell. Weeks, months, maybe years…she did not know, could barely tell the days by how often a hand shot through the flap at the base of her door, to deposit a fresh bowl of thin gruel each morning. She had heard the fighting outside, of course, and been glad at the cries of pain, at the knowledge that, even if her freedom could not be hoped for, at least the people who had taken it from her would suffer. The girl she was a year ago would have deplored the thought, the girl she was only months ago would have been overwhelmed with guilt at her own cruelty. The woman she was now lay in the dark, feeling nothing at all._

_It startled her, when there came the sound of a key jangling in the lock. She could not sit up – her head was too light, she was weak with hunger, and so just lay there, slumped against the wall and quite, quite helpless. The door swung open, flooding the cell with blinding light._

_“You must be Belle,” said a new voice – a man, she thought, definitely a man, and not a man she knew. The accent was not that of any land she had ever heard of, but…well, if he was the Queen’s man, she would not have heard the scuffling outside, and if he was to kill her…what had she to live for, in this filthy cell, with nothing to sustain her but her hate?_

_She made a weak noise in her throat, as near to speech as she could come anymore, since her water rations had begun to diminish still further._

_“Easy, love,” the man said, and there was something in his face, now she saw it, that Belle did not trust. “I’m here to rescue you.” He produced a key from inside his voluminous cloak, and unlocked her manacles, hands and feet alike. “We haven’t much time,” he warned her, “If the Queen finds out I’m here it will be both our heads. And what is contained in your head,” he went on, pressing his two hands, unasked-for and unwanted, against her temples, “Is worth a great deal to me.”_

_He looked as if he might have liked to go on, but one look at Belle’s pale, drawn face put paid to that idea._

_“I’ll explain the rest later,” he said quickly, “Once you’re well enough to help me against the monster who did this to you.”_

_That, at least, sounded promising. The woman from the forest’s enemies were not necessarily Belle’s friends, but at the very least they were not necessarily her enemies, and that…that, Belle could work with. That, Belle could survive._


	5. Emma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shit hits the fan.

_The best that could be said for the journey to the coast was that Belle was at least conscious this time. She was growing rather tired of being carted about like a sack of potatoes, and even if Captain Jones claimed to oppose the Queen, he seemed rather too reluctant to give her all the information for her liking. Even after she had been able to walk, rather unsteadily and with the aid of the grey-haired first mate, from the cart Jones had hired for them up a gangplank and onto a tall ship, of a sort her father would never have dreamed of maintaining in his fleet, she was being left mostly alone. The first mate had made up a bunk for her, down in the hold, and though he was in every day, she saw nothing of the captain for more than a week. The first time she was offered even stew ended badly, and while Mr Smee had been surprisingly tolerant about her being sick all over his boots, Belle was still faintly embarrassed by the whole business._

_She had done very little but eat and sleep in…she knew, now, how many days. It had been a full week, Mr Smee had said that morning, since she had arrived aboard ship. When she had asked for a date, it was not even a year since she had left the Dark Castle. He had hesitated to tell her anything more, only barely letting slip that Captain Jones had been searching a long time before he finally had found her, before plying her with yet more strong, sweet tea and egg broth._

_“And today,” he said earnestly, “I thought we might let you have a bit of fresh air – I told the Captain, it’d be better to wait ‘til you were healthy, but he’s never had much in the way of patience.”_

_“What does he want with me?” Belle asked, still slightly hoarse from so long without speaking, but feeling, somehow, better by the day. She had not been so very weakened, by her long imprisonment – certainly far less so than she had been after her time with the clerics, though everything she had ever read said that she ought still to have been almost too weak to move. That might be magic in itself – either Captain Jones’ or her former captors’, for whatever use it was they had meant to make of her seemed to have required her to be not so very much weakened as she had thought. This was heartening, and indeed, now she tried to stand, it was not the weakness in her limbs but the movement of the ship itself that made her brace herself against the bulkheads, wincing._

_“Ah,” Smee said, looking rather embarrassed, “I forgot – you haven’t your sea-legs yet. It may…”_

_Belle waved him off, shifting her weight carefully. It had been some years since she had been aboard ship, not since she had gone with the man she had loved that first time, but before that she had been aboard ship so often that the very fact that her sea-legs needed recovering felt like a blow. She was able to take a few uncertain steps across the room, leaning occasionally on the bulkheads as her strength failed her, and nodded at Mr Smee._

_“Thank you,” she said, the words coming out stiff and clumsy, after so long without speaking at all. “You didn’t have to do this for me. Surely- I can give information just as well now.”_

_Smee shook his head, “It’s more than that the Captain means to ask of you,” he warned. “I- I would not refuse him, if I were you,” he added, more cautiously now. “He doesn’t take refusal gently.”_

_Belle shrugged. Fear for her own life was not something she had much call for any longer. Her present conditions were pleasanter than the cell had been, but it took more than comfort to alter something that had become so much a part of her. If death came for her, then it came, and she would not turn it aside. If it did not…well, it was only delaying the inevitable. She had given herself up for dead when she fell from that tower, and her life, such as it had been, was lost to her now in its entirety._

_She still had to lean on Smee as they ventured out into the brilliant sunlight on deck, where the crew were already hard at work. There was no sign of land, no sign of where they were or what they were doing there._

_“Another day or so’s journey, and we’ll be at Kraken’s Point,” Smee said in a low voice, as Belle stepped away from him, leaning lightly on the edge of the ship and looking out over the sea, the salt in the air stinging skin turned pale and thin as paper by months below ground. It had been far, far too long. Even at the Dark Castle, she had missed the sea, the taste of it, the scent of salt in the air._

_She did not notice, then, the captain’s eyes on her, not until that night, when, pacing back and forth in the hold, leaning heavily against the bulkheads but determined to walk under her own power again, she heard voices out in the corridor. It was old instinct, now, to press her ear to the door, listening intently to the conversation on the other side._

_“-waste of time. If she’s well enough to walk, she’s been well enough to tell us what we need for days now.” It was the captain’s voice, harsher than Belle had heard it before, and with that same untrustworthy quality she thought she had seen in her cell._

_“And why would she tell us the truth so soon after being released from those dungeons?” Smee replied in the same low tones. “If we give her the time to recover, she’ll trust you. She spent more time in that castle than anyone else, and it has been known for women to grow to care for those who mistreat them. If she were to lie…”_

_“She won’t,” the captain said dismissively, “I doubt she could if she wanted to. Besides, she let us take her, didn’t she? With any luck, she’ll be too grateful to question what we tell her, and then…” a pause, possibly a gesture? Belle couldn’t tell._

_“If you say so, Captain,” said Smee, a slightly hurt edge to his voice._

_There was a scrape of boots, and the captain’s voice again, low and dangerous. “I do say so, Smee. And remember, before you get too attached, whose fault it is that you’re here.”_

_Belle heard the intake of breath on the other side of the door, and the sound of footsteps retreating away._

_Well. It was not precisely a surprise, that they had other motives, for Belle had almost lost the capacity to be much surprised by anything. And, if it was her captors that they sought to destroy, she saw no reason not to aid them. The only trouble was…what could she know, about the castle where she had been held? What could she know about her captor, even, that the captain had not known already in order to free her? She didn’t know. An awful suspicion began to take root in the back of her mind. There was nothing she could tell, and she knew, had all but been told outright, that their kindness to her had not been without its conditions. She had heard, also, some tales of what it was that sailors a long way from land might do with a lady captive. That had been the one indignity she had not yet suffered, and though she had thought herself beyond all hopes and all fears from the moment she had let herself fall from the tower, the thought of that last, worst degradation still made something uneasy coil in the pit of her stomach._

The ruined castle had not changed since their last visit there, but at least, Emma thought, there would be no return to the abandoned nursery, and the melancholy it had brought on for Snow. It had been strange, almost sad, to stand in that room and wonder what sort of person she’d have grown into if she’d had the life Snow so desperately wanted to have given her, and she didn’t much like the thought of going back in for round two.

“We kept the pen in my solar,” Snow was saying, as they followed a winding spiral staircase off from what looked like it might’ve been a great hall or something like that. “A solar,” she added, for Emma’s benefit, “Is a private room for the master or mistress of a castle. I used mine mostly as a sort of study, so I had somewhere to do all the work of getting the kingdom back in order after Regina’s rule was over.”

“But if this quill was so important,” Aurora piped up from behind, “Why not keep it in the castle vaults?”

Snow shook her head. “Because that would be the first place any thief would look for it,” she said, “In my solar, it would be just one quill among many. Who would be able to find it in that mess even if they were looking?”

“Not really selling the whole ‘we can find it’ thing there,” Emma pointed out dryly. “But ok, it’s the best we’ve got.” And wasn’t _that_ a depressing thought?

It wasn’t a very long staircase, mercifully, so it wasn’t long before they surfaced into a small, round room. Well, small by the standards of castles, which meant it was still bigger than Mary Margaret Blanchard’s whole flat, with a massive, empty fireplace and high, vaulted ceiling. It would have been beautiful, even after so many years of decay, except for the fact that it had been quite comprehensively trashed. The great desk against the far wall looked as if someone had tried to chop it up for firewood and failed, as did every other piece of furniture remaining in the room, lying splintered and broken. The remaining tapestries were faded and riddled with holes, some of them looking half-rotted already, others almost entirely gone, only the rails they had hung on remaining to show where they had been. Emma’s heart sank. If finding the quill had seemed unlikely before, it was impossible now.

Beside her, Snow swallowed.

“…Right,” she said, a little weakly, “Spread out, everyone. It’s a red quill, about so long. I don’t think it will have broken, not if it had the power to overcome the Dark One.”

Belle gave a little start. “The Dark One?” she repeated, “You- You managed to defeat-”

Ok, that was just weird. Emma looked sideways at her. “I thought you knew about that,” she said suspiciously. She ought to, Belle had been the one who told them.

Belle just shook her head. There was a very odd look on her face now, one Emma didn’t like the look of at all.

Emma followed Snow over to the great, ruined desk. “If we can’t find this thing, we’re back to square one,” she said in a low voice, “And Cora has the wardrobe ashes. We can’t fight her head-on.”

“No,” Snow agreed, “But if we can keep the compass away from her, she’ll be well away from Storybrooke. I don’t want that woman anywhere near Henry, and I’m sure you don’t either.”

Emma swallowed. “No,” she said, her voice shaking. And it was true. If the price for Henry’s safety was never to see him again, she’d do it. She’d made that choice once already, and she’d make it again. All the same, that wasn’t exactly Plan A.

The desk proved as disappointing as she had feared – there had been quills here, once, she could see the broken, rotted remains of them scattered across the floor, where someone had quite thoroughly ransacked the place.

“Did Cora do this?” Aurora said, across the room, looking up with wide, worried eyes.

Mulan shook her head before Snow could reply. “If she were, she wouldn’t have had to destroy this much,” she replied, “This is just ordinary looters. There was hardly a castle in this part of the world that wasn’t stripped of almost everything of any real value after their rulers disappeared.”

Emma frowned. “So…guessing the monarchy thing’s kind of gone out of style here, huh?” she asked. If it had…well, that’d be good to hear, because Emma really, _really_ didn’t feel up to being the heir to any _sort_ of throne, even if it was starting to look like she and Snow would probably be living about the same sort of time anyway.

“Only in this part of the world,” Belle said, surprising everyone, “And no-one’s bothered to do more than scout out the coast, because of the ogres. A fair few people tried to barter passage on whatever ships still remained with their crews intact for passage to Arendelle or Agrabah, in the early days.”

“And you were one of them, huh?” Emma asked, giving Belle a sidelong look.

Belle shrugged, looking slightly shifty. “Not exactly, but I met a fair few who were.” _Truth_.

“So, why didn’t you?” Snow asked, looking up from the drawer she was going through, where it looked like some sort of animal had decided to make a nest.

Belle didn’t look back at her. “Oh…I had my family to think about. And I couldn’t leave Misthaven.” _Lie_.

All right, Emma rationalised to herself, so Belle’s reasons for not wanting to leave Misthaven could have been anything, or just too personal for her to want to share them with a bunch of people she was only associating with at all because a deranged witch had torn her heart out. But that was the problem. Belle’s reasons could be entirely innocent, but that didn’t change the fact that, with Cora pulling her strings, it was just too much of a risk to even _think_ of trusting her. She caught Snow’s eye, but didn’t know how to get the message across without letting Belle know they knew, because what Belle knew, Cora knew.

“Funny,” Snow said, frowning at Belle, “You don’t sound like you came from Misthaven, in the beginning. That’s…hmm…” she cocked her head to one side, “Actually, I haven’t the least idea what that accent is. Where did you say you were from, again?”

“Avonlea,” Belle said. Now Emma listened, there was something odd about her voice. It couldn’t seem to decide which part of the world it wanted to be from. Emma wouldn’t have thought that was anything so very unusual – it certainly made more sense than Snow or Mulan sounding American – but apparently it was. One of the many perks of having grown up in this world, Emma supposed, though not one that made up for the lack of indoor plumbing.

“You don’t sound like you came from there either,” Snow said, frowning a little, “But then, you must have gone all over the world, working for the Dark One.”

Belle gave a quick, flashing smile. “Well,” she admitted, “I have seen a fair bit of it, in my time. This world and others. I forget, sometimes, how long it’s been since I was last in the Marchlands.” It didn’t read as a lie to Emma’s superpower, but there was something squirrelly about the way Belle was behaving. Even Aurora seemed to have picked up on it now.

“Then why did you come to Misthaven at all?” she asked. “I thought the Marchlands were seafarers. Certainly one heard a lot about pirates attacking Marchlands shipping.”

Snow nodded, “Yeah, I heard a fair bit about that, before the curse happened,” she admitted, slamming the drawer closed and starting in on the one below it. “And then…oh, what was his name, the worst of the lot…he disappeared. As if he’d melted into thin air, was the way I heard it. What was his name…Singleton? Or- I’m fairly sure it was Flint? Maybe Silver?”

“Long John Silver _exists_?” Emma said flatly. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

Snow waved a hand, “I don’t _know_ , Emma! This was all going on in the Marchlands – your father’s home kingdom. Charming and I…well, King George was an _awful_ piece of work – a good king, in his way,” she added quickly, “But as ruthless as they came, and he didn’t like either of us very much, and Storybrooke did not improve him.”

“All right,” Mulan said, “So I don’t think any of us are going to find the quill in this mess. Whatever happened to it, it’s probably long gone by now. But you kept the Dark One captive for…how long, exactly? A year, maybe less? You must have had some way to keep him prisoned?”

Snow shook her head, but behind her, Emma noticed the look on Belle’s face, oddly startled, as if this was a solution to their problems she had not thought up herself.

“We kept him in a cell beneath the castle,” Snow was saying, “The quill only kept him paralysed for so long, but the cell…the cell was fortified with magic. The Blue Fairy helped in its construction, but…there might be _something_ still there...”

Belle snorted. “Oh, I’m sure the Reul Ghorm was all too willing to _help_ ,” she said bitterly. “I don’t think the wretched woman ever knew when to leave well enough alone.”

“You don’t like fairies?” Aurora asked, looking as if Belle had just admitted to drowning puppies in her free time.

Belle shook her head. “I suppose there are some who might be all right,” she conceded grudgingly, “But the Reul Ghorm…” her face twisted in disgust, and she stopped, and shook herself. “I never had much care for religion,” she said at last. _That_ was a lie, Emma could hear it, but even if it hadn’t been, she couldn’t see what religion and fairies had to do with one another, and made a note to ask Snow as soon as they had a bit of privacy.

“So…down to the cells, then?” Emma suggested, and Snow nodded, looking weary. Well, Emma thought, it had to be worth a shot.

_In the end, the captain called her to his cabin the next day. By then, Belle could walk a straight line, though with some difficulty, and was quite certain that there had been some sort of magic, either in her captivity or in her rescuers, to allow her to recover quite so fast when she needed to. It was Mr Smee who showed her the way – he didn’t seem to want to leave her alone – and left her at the top of the hatch with a worried, fretful look about him._

_“I don’t think he’ll treat you badly,” he said awkwardly, “So long as you tell him what he wants to know.”_

_Left unspoken between them was what would happen if she didn’t. They hadn’t known her long, here, but Belle…Belle has her limits, though they are further, far further out than she would ever have thought before. If he wants her to turn against her captors, against her father, against Avonlea, against the Reul Ghorm herself, Belle will do it, and laugh as Lord Maurice’s castle burns. He has lost the right to her loyalty, she tells herself. It cannot be a betrayal when she was the first one betrayed._

_The cabin is white-painted, spacious, pleasant enough, with a bed built into the far end with shelves underneath, and a table with two chairs pushed against the wall. The captain was sitting in one of them, his sleeves rolled up, his hands on the table, there in plain sight. He was cleaning his fingernails with a knife as she came in, and looked up as she dismounted the last step from the ladder down from the hatch, steadying herself against the bulkhead._

_“Ah. Lady Belle. Smee hasn’t smothered you yet,” he said, with a bright, flashing grin._

_Belle shook her head, and took the chair he indicated with a nod of thanks. “Mr Smee has been very kind to me,” she said, forcing a smile. “Above and beyond what would have been expected. Thank you,” she added, in a low voice, “For getting me out of that place.”_

_Captain Jones straightened, puffing himself up in such a way that Belle couldn’t help but think of how Gaston had done the very same thing, when she had politely praised his prowess, his skill in battle, knowing her people’s lives rested on their alliance._

_Captain Jones nodded. “You want to know why I brought you here, I suppose,” he said lazily, as if expecting her to say no, no, no such thought occurred to her._

_“I hardly thought you were doing it out of the kindness of your heart,” Belle said bluntly. This seemed to misplease him, for his smile grew somewhat forced._

_“Your father’s life is in danger,” he said, very solemnly, “He’s being attacked.”_

_Belle threw back her head and laughed. “I am glad to hear it,” she said, “The ogres again, is it? Well, it’s no more than he deserves, after all. I hope you didn’t steal me out of prison for_ that _.”_

_Captain Jones had gone very quiet. “Where I grew up, they called that treason,” he said softly, “And it was a hanging offence. Have you no fear of death, my lady? If not your family’s, then your own?”_

_“What have I left to live for?” Belle replied. “I am alone. My family has forsaken me, I have nowhere to go but back to the cells, and no reason to go on living even now. Why should I care to live?”_

_“For your revenge, lady,” Jones said, which sobered her. Revenge…once, she would have reviled the thought, but now…she had been wronged, had she not, and with no recourse to law or custom to repay her torturers for the deed. What was left, then, but revenge, when she had found now the limits of her forgiveness? Had she not earned it? The villainy they had taught her, she would execute, and it would go hard with them who had earnt it. Revenge! The thought of it was like…like being alone, starved and parched and desolate, and tasting water again. If she might live for nothing else, the people who had done this to her would not go without their punishment. She bit her lip and tasted blood,_

_“You like that thought, do you?” Jones said in his low voice, “I thought you might. Well, even if your father’s life is not lure enough, that might be, for I share your thirst for it.”_

_“Revenge?” Belle asked, “Against my father? What wrong has he done you?”_

_Jones gave her a startled look, “Not_ him _,” he said, irritable now, “Your father’s lands are being attacked by that very same monster that stole you away from your family to begin with.”_

 _Belle frowned. “Wait…” she could not find his name. She had never found his name, she would never find his name… “_ The Dark One _?” she said, for lack of any other name to call him, almost laughing at the thought. Of all the people who had done her harm, the Dark One was the least of them – he, at least, had thought he was sending her home to a loving father and a return to the life she had known._

 _“The same,” Jones said earnestly, “He must be stopped! You’ve spent more time with him than anyone – there are rumours of a magical weapon that has the power to kill him. I_ need _to know what that weapon is and where to find it-”_

_“No.”_

_Jones seemed surprised by that. His mouth was still half-open, he looked as if he’d been slapped. Why that should be, Belle had no idea – she had defied worse than Jones on her lover’s part, and under far harder circumstances than these._

_“Might I ask why not?” he demanded, in a voice that strove to be calm, but failed, making his irritation all the clearer._

_Belle glared at him. “I won’t betray his trust,” she said, “I won’t betray him, Captain Jones, and if you thought I could, you’re more a fool than I ever dreamed you might be.”_

_A muscle was jumping in Jones’s cheek now, and she knew the blow was coming before it landed, hard enough to knock the chair over and send her sprawling. She scrabbled back, tasting blood in her mouth as her hand found the ladder and she dragged herself, every limb protesting, to her feet._

_“So pretty,” Jones said, shaking his head, “And yet, so useless…” Belle could see the flash of a knife, she knew what he must mean to do with her, but she wouldn’t bend to this, not to another bully trying to break her to his hand. “I wonder,” Jones was saying now, “Would you be this loyal if you could see him for what he really was? I knew him in the beginning, my dear, and whatever you think of him, you are almost certainly wrong.”_

_“I think I must be!” Belle snapped back, “I called him a coward, when I left him! Well, I’ll say this. He’s less a coward than you are! Or any of the others who’ve had me since! Big men, with your swords and whips and bludgeons, all so proud of themselves when you couldn’t even break one tiny unarmed girl! Whatever else he might be, he’s less a coward than you!”_

_For a moment, she was sure Jones would kill her. Then, he grinned, wide and cruel and savage, so wide it almost seemed to split his face in two. “Crocodile’s found himself a little sandpiper,” he said mockingly, catching her chin in his hand and dragging it to within an inch of his. “I know-” and here he said it, Belle’s love’s name, that was lost to her, “-of old, girl. He wouldn’t so much as fight me with his wife’s life on the line, and you really think he’d save you? Oh, he hides behind his power now, but without it? He’s_ nothing _.”_

_“And he’s still a better man than you ever could be!” Belle very nearly spat at him. “Even after all he’s done!”_

_“You think so, do you?” Jones wrenched her chin up still further. “And I’ll have no further help from you?”_

_Belle spat in his face. It wasn’t something she had planned to do, but at the time it seemed the only thing she could possibly do. It came out bloody, and when Jones took his hand away to wipe at it, his fingers came away stained with red._

_“You’ll pay for that, m’lady,” he growled, making the courtesy sound like a curse. “SMEE!” he yelled, and Belle heard heavy boots on the deck overhead, heard the creaking of the ladder before she saw Smee’s worried face with its white beard and its red cap._

_“I heard shouting, Captain?” he said, his eyes sliding to Belle. “Something wrong?” Jones nodded, rounding on him, “Yes!” he snarled, “Yes, there is. I want you to take her!” he nodded roughly at Belle, “And clap her in irons. Let’s see if the brig won’t sweeten her temper a bit.”_

_Belle, with a calm she would not have believed a year ago, raised her eyebrows. “What, again?” she asked, “How very novel.”_

_Mr Smee, though, looked uneasy. “You’re- Uh, you’re sure, Captain? It’s frightful bad luck to have a lady locked up…”_

_“Of course I’m sure, Smee!” Jones snarled, “Take her below decks, and make sure she knows just how hard we can make things for her if she doesn’t come ‘round. You’ve got a week,” he added, looking Belle in the eye, “And then, we’ll figure out what it is we’re going to have to do with you.”_

_“You think that scares me?” Belle called, as Smee tried to pull her away, “I lived almost a year in what must be the most awful dungeons in the world, do you think one week will break me?”_

_“I hope, for your sake, it will,” Smee muttered, “Lady, please, it’s not a good idea to aggravate the captain. He can get very nasty, once he’s in a temper.”_

_“I noticed,” Belle said, putting one hand, very gingerly, to her face where Jones had hit her. It had been a hard blow, but she had endured harder, and if Jones thought a week in his brig would break her, he knew nothing of what she had already seen._

It was difficult to imagine Mr Gold in the cell. Gold, sleek and immaculate even in the cells back in Storybrooke, in his good suits, with his gold-topped cane, was not a person who belonged in the cell more akin to a cage at the far end of the rough-hewn tunnel Snow had led them down. This part felt less like a castle and more like a cave, and Emma couldn’t help the odd chill that gripped her, the closer they got to the cell.

Belle was the first of them to break the silence. “You _kept_ him here?” she demanded, her voice shaking. “You…you imprisoned him – anyone – _here_?”

“It was the only place,” Snow said, her voice shaking slightly, “The only place the Blue Fairy could make secure enough to hold him.”

Belle spat, very delicately, on the ground. “Reul Ghorm,” she murmured, very nearly a growl. The shadows played strangely over her face and for a moment Emma could swear her eyes looked almost red in the torchlight.

“You…you really hate her, don’t you?” Snow said, sounding uncertain, as if not understanding how _anyone_ could hate the Blue Fairy. Emma…was kind of with her, on that one. The Mother Superior hadn’t seemed too bad to her – a bit strict, maybe, but nothing to earn that sort of absolute, white-hot _hatred_ , fierce enough to break through Belle’s previous studied calm.

“More than you will ever know,” Belle said, and it was amazing how a calm and level voice could sound so much like a snarl. “You kept someone here, on the say-so of that _thing_ …”

“It was the only way,” Snow said, though even she did not sound terribly convinced any longer. “The Blue Fairy is ancient, and wise, and I had never heard any evil of her…”

Belle gave a dark and mirthless chuckle. It unsettled Emma – it did not sound like the woman she had taken Belle for up till now. “That says more for your hearing than her character, highness, but I can’t say this-” she nodded to the squalid cell in front of them, “Is out of keeping with what I know of the Reul Ghorm and her _kindnesses_.”

Snow swallowed. “I haven’t been here since before Regina’s curse,” she admitted, “It looks…different, after so long in Storybrooke. Things were harder, in this world.”

“They’d have to be,” Emma agreed. “So…what were you doing here?”

“Asking after you,” Snow said, raising her lantern a little higher, “It was here he told us you were going to be the Saviour.”

Emma stared at her. “He _knew_?”

“It was prophesised,” Snow admitted. “That was why-”

“Why you had to send me away,” Emma finished, bitterness creeping back into her tone. “I suppose you didn’t think that keeping me around might mean the curse got broken twenty years sooner.”

Snow shook her head. “It wasn’t like that, Emma. We both knew that if Regina had the least idea what you could do, she would have killed you and not felt a moment’s remorse for it.”

“Not doing much to convince me we shouldn’t have just let the Wraith have her, here,” Emma muttered, but her heart wasn’t in it. Henry would’ve been devastated, she knew, and even if she was beginning to wonder whether there was anything they could do to her…oh, god, her step-grandmother…that would be enough for all the misery she’d caused, and that Emma was just beginning to learn about, that _wouldn’t_ break Henry’s heart.

“Spread out!” Snow called, hurrying to join the rest of the group in the cell itself, “The fairies who constructed the cell were fairly vague about what it was they were doing…”

Emma could see Belle’s scowl in the shadows, but it was Mulan who spoke first.

“We’re none of us experts on magic,” she warned, “It might take some time, if there’s anything here at all.”

Emma shook her head, “We don’t _have_ time, Cora could find us any minute. This is the best shot we have at finding anything that could possibly help us.”

“That’s all very well, but what if we can’t?” Mulan snapped, “We have the compass, but there might yet be other ways.”

“If it comes to it,” Aurora said, striving to be helpful, “I could go under again, ask your son if he can find anything – there are sorcerers in your land, aren’t there?”

Emma could see Snow’s smile even in this darkness. “Oh, yeah. Some of the best. But let’s not take that risk if we don’t have to, hmm?”

Aurora nodded, quick and only visible in the movement of her hair, and hurried over to examine the far walls of the cell, pressing her hands to the crevices in the rock. Emma, meanwhile, examined the bars.

They were more like teeth than bars, really, even in their retracted state. Long, sharp spurs of…was it metal or stone? Even to the touch, it was hard to tell. Being trapped in this cell would have been like being kept in the mouth of one of those deep-sea fish, the ones with more teeth than Emma was comfortable imagining in the mouth of pretty much anything.

“So…the curse must’ve affected things down here too, right?” she asked, looking around to catch Snow’s eye. “I mean, he’s in Storybrooke, there had to have been a way…”

Snow nodded. “I was a bit occupied at the time, but yeah, I guess,” she admitted. “You don’t think-”

“Would any of us even know an enchantment if we found it?” Emma demanded in a low, fierce voice. “The more I hear about this plan, the less sense it seems to make, and now-”

“I found something!” It was Aurora’s voice, and they both turned, to see her holding aloft what looked like a roll of parchment, and an empty pot of ink.

“What is that? A message?” Snow demanded, holding out her hand for it.

Aurora nodded jerkily, and offered the roll of parchment to Emma. “Yes,” she admitted, her voice surprisingly level, “And I think it’s for you.”

Emma’s eyes flicked downwards. There, on the paper, where it was unrolled just enough for her to see, was her name, written over and over and over again, in the same eerily perfect copperplate handwriting she had seen whenever Gold had occasion to write anything.

“…the _hell_?” she muttered, letting the paper unroll still further, showing more and more repetitions. _Emma, Emma, Emma_. Almost like a charm, or a prayer, written so many times it seemed more like a pattern than a word.

Snow tugged the paper out of her unresisting hands to look at it, her face as white as chalk. “I don’t understand. How- How did he even get hold of the ink to do it?”

“Were there other prisoners?” Mulan asked, “Did the ink belong to one of them?”

Snow shook her head. “No. He was kept alone; he was too dangerous to allow any human contact…”

“No wonder he went crazy,” Emma muttered. Solitary had been bad enough to have her talking to the walls, the few times she’d been thrown in there. She looked over at the bars, where Belle was standing, looking sickened and…oddly relieved, Emma thought for a moment, but that…that made no sense, no matter what context you were using, unless it was just relief that her old master wasn’t in this world any more. “What is it?” she asked.

Belle swallowed. “My complaint hasn’t changed,” she said in a shaking voice. “You- You kept a living thing in here-”

“We kept the Dark One in here,” Snow corrected, “He can’t die, he isn’t really human, it wasn’t _hurting_ him-”

Belle gave a wild sort of laugh, “You don’t think _that_ ,” she nodded to the paper, “Is proof enough you _did_?”

“I know it looks bad,” Snow said, sounding unconvinced even to Emma’s ears, “But what he was doing was awful, the only way to stop him was-”

“No, I’m with her.” Emma hadn’t meant to say it, but she couldn’t exactly stop now. “I mean, Henry’s book said it was the whole Ashley thing that got you to lock him up, and last time I looked, that didn’t work so well.”

“What-” Aurora started, but Snow cut across her, looking angrier than Emma had ever seen her, even in the village Cora had massacred and Snow had hardly batted an eyelid at.

“What was I supposed to do, Emma? Just let him take that child away? You couldn’t do it, and Rumpelstiltskin was harder to get the better of than Mr Gold ever could be!”

Emma gestured around the place, “Not lock the guy up like this, maybe? You couldn’t make a new deal with that guy? He caved pretty quick when _I_ asked about it!”

“That was before,” Snow said tightly, “We still don’t know when he remembered, if it wasn’t at the same time as the rest of us, if you’d been dealing with him with all his memories you’d have had a much harder fight.”

Something in all of that sounded off to Emma, but there wasn’t any time to focus on that now. “And anyway,” she added, made reckless by the knowledge that if she didn’t say it now, she’d say it in Henry’s hearing and he, she knew, could not bear to hear it. “If you had Gold in here, how come Regina was still free? I thought you beat her, didn’t you?”

“We did,” Snow admitted. “I- I couldn’t kill her.”

Belle made a disgusted noise, and even Mulan looked dubious at that.

“Ok, you couldn’t kill her, but…” Emma flailed a hand around the cell, “Clearly, you had dungeons! Or if you did lock her up, how come she was able to enact that curse from jail?”

Snow couldn’t meet her gaze, and Emma knew, just as she’d known Mary Margaret would forgive Regina after all, what must have happened.

“You let her go,” she said, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. “You let her go, _knowing_ she would want revenge for you defeating her, _knowing_ what she was capable of? I don’t even know all of it, and I’ve been hearing some pretty gruesome stories since we came back here!”

Mulan had gone white. “You- You had the Queen captive, and you _released_ her?” she demanded, “You- All of this- It’s _your_ fault?”

“I…” Snow looked as if someone had slapped her. “I- I guess. If only I’d been able to-”

“To what?” Emma demanded, “To reach her? _Fuck_ that noise. This isn’t on anyone but Regina. Even if you _were_ an idiot to let her go,” she added, less because it was true than because Mulan needed to hear it. “But we can put that right when we get home,” she said firmly.

Snow glared at her, “ _You_ stopped Doctor Whale leading that lynch mob that was after her!”

“Because it was a _lynch mob_! Not because I didn’t think she deserved to deal with the consequences of what she’d done to them all!”

“We can’t just stop trusting people, or giving them chances!” Snow retorted furiously, “I killed enough of the Queen’s men while I was on the run, and if I hadn’t-”

Emma raked a hand through her hair, “If you hadn’t _what_? I don’t care what you did, what could _possibly_ be a good enough reason to justify killing a whole bunch of people who never did a thing to her? And _don’t_ say the guards never did a thing to you. It was a battle, these things happen, even _I_ know that!”

Then, of course, Aurora and Mulan joined in, and so it wasn’t _really_ Emma’s fault that none of them noticed that Belle was well outside the cell until the bars came crashing down, trapping them inside.

_The brig was dark, and noisome, and she could hear the rats moving about nearby, but it was warm, and it was quiet, and Smee was able to slip her a crust of dry bread and a wodge of sharp cheese before he shut her down there, apologising profusely all the while. By the standards Belle had become accustomed to, that made it very nearly a palace. It was a very bare hold, for what was either a merchant or a pirate ship, and Belle would lay her bets on the latter. Captain Jones had not struck her as much of a trader, which was as great a disadvantage for a pirate as any more legitimate merchant. If one of them knew that, she thought it was probably Smee, although her own biases might have led her that way first._

_Belle had, at the age of nine, been fascinated by pirates. She had sung sea-shanties until her nurse’s eye would twitch at the very mention of the word ‘rum’, and read nothing but pirate-stories for most of the year until her father had taken it upon himself to explain how piracy truly worked, and what it meant for the people of the Marchlands. The fact that piracy involved as much trading as fighting, and that generally the treasures they were after were not gold and fabulous jewels so much as coffee and sugar and wine, had rather put her off the idea at the time. Well, now she had met real pirates, and it had not been at all what that long-ago girl might have expected._

_She couldn’t say for sure, but it was less than a day before the hatch down to the hold was opened up again, and Smee reappeared to help her up. His face was grey, drawn, and he didn’t seem willing to look her in the eye, which told Belle enough about what her fate was likely to be that she almost wished she were back in the dark with the rats. It felt strange, to wish for longer, but there it was. Smee kept a firm grip on her arm all the way up to the foredeck, as if afraid she’d try and cast herself into the sea if he let go of her even for a moment. Maybe she would have done, except that Jones would have won thing, and for a long time now sheer cussedness had been the only thing keeping Belle alive._

_Jones was standing on the foredeck when they reached it, and Smee guided Belle through a throng of jeering, whooping pirates._

_“Ah, there she is!” he called, to general laughter and cries of approval from the crowd. “The crocodile’s doxy. His taste’s gone downhill since the last I saw him, but then, I guess a man like that prefers a woman he can do what he likes with.”_

_Belle glared at him. “You have no idea what he’d want,” she spat back, less because she really believed it than just to spite Jones. Whatever the Dark One, her lover, her –_ her _crocodile, not Jones’, because she’d be_ damned _if she’d give him up to anyone – wanted, it was no concern of Jones’._

 _“Brave lass,” Jones said, and she couldn’t tell if it was meant as a taunt or not, “Well, we’ll see. As you can see,_ m’lady _,” he said, with a mocking emphasis on the last word, “You wouldn’t tell me what I need to know. And here I am with a ship full of men in need of_ companionship _, and no use at all for a noble girl who can’t earn her keep anywhere but on her back. You see my dilemma here?”_

_Belle’s eyes flicked to the sword in his hands. She wouldn’t face her fate quietly this time. She’d fight as hard as she could, and maybe that would be enough that one of them would lose temper and kill her before the worst could happen. If not…if not, then she would have at least caused them as much harm as she could, and taken the price of every moment’s pleasure they had of her rape out of them in blood before the end._

_Jones smiled wickedly at her, and she wanted more than anything to wipe that smug smirk off his face with a mallet. “That said,” he went on, “I do consider myself an honourable man, a man with a code…” Belle laughed derisively, and saw the anger flash in Jones’ eyes before he composed himself. “So…if you don’t want to be enjoying the company of my men for the rest of the voyage, you can either tell me what I want to know, or…” One of the crew threw him another sword, and he tossed it to fall at Belle’s feet. “You can take what you want from me.”_

_Belle stared down at the sword. It was hopeless, she knew that. She’d never held a sword before in her life, was still weakened from her long imprisonment, and she would be facing a man at least a decade her senior, who had been using a sword every day for years. But then, she had never expected that Jones would treat her fairly._

_Jones’ smile widened. “Never been in a duel before, I take it?” he asked, in a low, confiding voice. “Well, it's quite simple, really. The pointy end goes in the other guy. Go on,” he said. “Pick it up.”_

_Belle bent, keeping her eyes locked on Jones’, and grasped the sword. She fumbled it, the first time, and heard a snicker from somewhere in the crowd, but reached for it again, and pulled herself upright._

_There was something approving in the way Jones looked at her then. “Not as much as a coward of that crocodile of yours, eh?” he said, leaning forwards, “I gave him the same choice, once, and he…” Jones clicked his tongue, “Well, he went the other way. You, though, you’re not like him. A pitiful sight it was, to see a grown man beg like that. Even a cripple should have more pride than that. I told him, a man who’s not willing to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.”_

_“And what about men who can’t face a real opponent,” Belle snapped back, “And have to resort to fighting women and_ cripples _just to make himself feel like he’s something more than any other village bully?”_

_Something dangerous flashed across Jones’s face. “Well, that’s touching,” he said, grinning even wider, “But it’s a fairer chance than you’d get with anyone else out there. I’d save your comments, if I were you, unless you’d rather get acquainted with my men right here and now? Not usually my taste, I admit, but if you’re so certain…”_

_Belle lunged at him._

_It was a weak blow, and poorly-judged, but it at least began the duel in earnest, and if Jones batted her sword away without any apparent effort._

_“A little more passion, if you please, m’lady,” he taunted her, “One would think you didn’t want to live.”_

_Belle shrugged. “I’ve little enough to live for. And,” she went on, side-stepping his strike in response. It was telegraphed from a mile away, and even to such a novice as herself it was clear he was playing with her. Maybe that was why she said what she did next, what sparked the reckless daring that led her to declare. “There’s little enough to stake, on your side. I’ve hazarded all I have-” she ducked to avoid another blow, knowing that he only did it to draw out the game, and hating him for it. “Perhaps you should do the same.”_

_Jones stopped dead, then laughed, low and dark. “You really are a bold one, aren’t you?” he said, with all the subtlety of a mystery-play villain. “All right, then. Everything I have, against your_ virtue _, or what’s left of it.”_

_Belle struck out wildly, and maybe he hadn’t expected it, because when she looked at Jones again there was a thin line of blood welling up across his cheek, and he looked startled for a moment before his eyes narrowed again._

_“You’ll regret that, girl,” he said in a low voice, almost a growl._

_Belle had never been in a duel before, never so much as held a sword, and her grasp of what she was supposed to be doing was flimsy at best. She had the rough idea that you were supposed to use your sword to stop the other person skewering you with theirs, but in the list of possible outcomes of this duel, her death was probably the best of them._

_And then there was no more time to consider, because she was fighting in earnest, even if the blows she could not turn aside were only glancing things, that caught legs and arms and sides and only raised a little blood, though she cried out the first time – from the shock of it, more than the pain. She was tiring faster than she had expected, though, and it only took one hard blow with the flat of the sword to send her toppling over and scrabbling away, struggling desperately to regain her footing before Jones was on her. She was halfway to her feet when the sword came down, and then-_

_She did not realise, for a moment, what had happened, only that her arm felt lighter than before, and that the crowd was roaring somewhere far, far farther off than she had thought. When she looked at Jones, he was staring at her, his head cocked slightly to one side. Slowly, her eyes slid down to…she did not recognise it for what it was at first, except that she saw the gleam of the sword and the spray of blood, redder and more garish than she had ever thought it before, and then the pain almost seemed like an afterthought. It was dull, a hard, throbbing pain, different to the whippings and the burnings and the ache of starvation in the pit of her stomach._

_Jones grinned wolfishly at her. “Pick it up,” he said, slow and deliberate._

_Smee, in the crowd, looked pale. “But, captain, shouldn’t we at least- That arm, it’ll, it’ll kill her if we don’t-”_

_“Shut up, Smee,” Jones snapped, not even look around. “Pick it up,” he repeated._

_Afterwards, Belle could never be sure what it was in that moment that had done it, only that something must have happened in her, to cause what came next. There was no red mist that descended over her eyes, no moment when she did not know what was happening. There was not even, and this was the strangest thing at all, any anger as she knew it usually. Only…only an odd detachment, and a pleasure that struck deeper, somehow, than any she had known before. She went for Jones. She did not think he had expected it, to be set upon by a tiny slip of a noblewoman without a sword or a hand to hold it in. If he had been on his guard, he could have killed her without more than a twitch of his wrist, but he hadn’t been, and there was his downfall._

_The full force of her knocked him over – she had thrown her whole weight behind that mad charge, and his sword had fallen from his hand. Even then, he could’ve saved himself, but perhaps he did not see her as a real threat even then, or perhaps he was merely dazed, for his head had hit the deck hard enough to leave a red smear of blood on the golden wood. She slammed his head down again with the one hand that remained at her, and her fingers found the hilt of the sword. She stabbed him. His whole body jerked underneath her, and she almost laughed at the rightness of it. She stabbed him again, still harder, to see if he would do it again, and rejoiced in it as he did, as the look in those cold blue eyes turned hot and pulsing with fear, as his breath came quick and shallow. Again and again and again, as the man who would have killed her gasped out his last on the foredeck._

_It seemed like it ought to have taken hours, perhaps days, maybe weeks. In fact, the whole thing was over in rather less than a minute. Or rather, he was dead in less than a minute, but it took perhaps three for rough, not ungentle hands to catch hold of her above the elbows, and pull her away from the body on the deck._

_“Come along, ma’am,” Smee said, his low voice harsh in her ear, “Let’s get that arm seen to.”_

_She followed, because what else could she do, and managed to reach the captain’s cabin before the full force of the pain set in._

“Son of a-” Emma’s head snapped around, and there was Belle, standing by the lever with an odd look on her face.

“Belle?” Snow demanded, “What are you _doing_?”

Belle made a flamboyant gesture of one hand, quite at odds with the impression Emma had formed of her. “I really am sorry about this, Emma. Less so about you,” she added, nodding at Snow, “But I did _tell_ you what I was, you know. It’s hardly my fault if you didn’t choose to listen.”

“How very public-spirited of you,” said another voice, and Cora appeared in the shadows of the dungeon.

Belle gave her a long, cool look, and though she was still beautiful, there was something terrible about her now. “You know why I did it,” she said through gritted teeth, “And if I had my liberty-”

“I know, my dear, I know.” Cora tutted, “You are a predictable little thing. It’s a wonder you were able to catch dear Rumpel’s attention at all. But in the end, your betrayals meant nothing.” She crooked her fingers, and Belle produced, from inside her bodice, the compass, and laid it in Cora's waiting hand. Snow cried out and tried to pry at the bars, but Cora only smiled. “Don’t waste your energy, dear. Rumpelstiltskin himself couldn’t escape from this cell. I have what I need, and…”  Cora turned to Belle and _smiled_ , and it was terrible to see. “I have another purpose for you, Captain. You’ll need this.” And, out of nowhere she produced a dully gleaming iron hook, and Emma drew in a sharp breath.

“Captain?” she demanded. “Captain Hook?”

She knew enough about kids’ stories to know damn well that _Peter Pan_ wasn’t a fairy-tale any more than _Alice in Wonderland_ had been, which meant that Jefferson guy had probably just been crazy and only coincidentally right. And anyway, she remembered Captain Hook! The most ridiculous Disney villain of the lot, with his long perm and his crocodile and his crew of completely incompetent pirates. She’d _laughed_ at him, whenever a foster-parent had pulled out the Disney movies to keep their charges distracted. She did not feel very much like laughing now.

Belle – Hook –  took the hook from Cora in her flesh-and-blood hand, holding it only loosely, as if she hadn’t even noticed the sharpness of the thing. “I had to do something to support myself,” she said, though her heart did not seem to be in it, and there was something forced about her wry smile. “Shame about the plan for the cell,” she added casually, “But then, perhaps you should’ve considered that before asking the Reul Ghorm for aid.”

“Now, none of that,” said Cora, shaking her head with the air of a teacher chastising a well-meaning but clumsy two-year-old. “Gloating is unbecoming, captain. Forgive us. We’d love to stay, but Storybrooke awaits.”

“You betrayed us!” Snow said flatly, still glaring at Belle.

Belle lifted an eyebrow. “To ‘betray’, one has to first have loyalty to those one is acting against,” she said coolly, “And while I do like most of your party…that ended when I saw what you had done here.” Her voice dropped, grew colder. “It is a monstrous thing, what you have done here, and whether you knew what it would mean or not, you should bear the price of it.” She turned away to follow Cora, and Emma’s heart leapt into her throat.

“Belle!” Emma called, hopelessly, “Hook! Wait. Please don’t do this. My son is in Storybrooke. He needs me.”

Belle looked over her shoulder, and seemed to be about to say something, but Cora drew something that pulsed and glowed – Belle’s heart, Emma realised, with a sick rush of horror – from inside her cloak, and Belle fell silent, though her eyes still gleamed redly as she glared at Cora, and if she could, Emma believed that she would have ripped Cora's throat out right then and there. Captain Hook lowered her eyes, and followed Cora out.


End file.
